BY RYAN O'CONNOR

Will Demars and Tim Costa have been playing baseball together since they were 10 years old.

A year later, Peter Catalano made the same Pelham Little League all-star team as Demars and Costa.

The three have been practically inseparable since, maintaining an on-the-diamond bond that has lasted through Little League, Babe Ruth, high school and three seasons of American Legion baseball.

Now, with their baseball careers primarily in the past – Costa still plays for Division III Thomas College in Waterville, Maine – the Pelham trio has found a new way to share their summers.

They are coaching the Salem American Legion junior baseball team, a first-year program for developing 15- to 17-year-old players into high school stars and legitimate college prospects.

Prior to joining the coaching ranks, Costa, Catalano and Demars helped build the legion program from the ground
up, winning two games four years ago in its first season, four games the next year, then 13 wins and a playoff appearance in 2006.

And John Ryan, who managed the three on the Legion’s senior team for three years and runs the Post 63 program, said he could not find a better group to tutor his future players.

Ryan, coaching for more than 25 years, said Demars is the toughest baseball player he has ever met, something he knew would rub off on the younger players.

“I mean, he was hit 18 times last year, his on-base percentage was .600, and he’s an outstanding catcher,” said Ryan. “He doesn’t necessarily have a lot of great natural ability. He’s a good athlete, but he always pushed himself to get to that next level on sheer desire.”

Catalano and Costa are similar, he said, with Catalano fighting through diabetes to become a great ball player and Costa consistently being one of the most aggressive guys on the field.

“I wanted some of those younger kids to get that mentality instilled in them,” said Ryan. “It’s that desire that has driven those kids that I wanted to see in the younger kids coming up.”

For the Pelham threesome, the opportunity was too enticing to miss.

“We had no commitments and no conflict except that we all work during the day, so we took him up on it,” said Demars. “He pretty much gave us all the freedom to run the team like we wanted.”

But Ryan knew how they would coach, and he knew they would be a cohesive unit.

“Having played together for so long, it made it a lot easier to run our team,” said Demars. “We all came from the same program and have the same idea of how we want to play baseball and how we want to conduct ourselves.
“We’re all on the same page all the time.”

Though their team fell one win short of making the first-annual American Legion junior baseball tournament, Ryan was happy with what he saw.

“I didn’t push them to win games,” said Ryan. “I pushed them to develop players and teach them to play baseball, and I think they’ve done that.”

Aside from wins and loses, Costa said there was something special about coaching with his former teammates, a bond created only through the rigors of many years playing through rain and hot weather.

“The weirdest thing is a lot of time Will would be coaching third, and I’d run something by him, and he would look at me funny and say he had been thinking the same thing. So it’s just stuff like that, which happened all the time, that gave us all assurance on our philosophies and baseball knowledge,” said Costa of his roommate at Bentley College.

“Plus the fact that I played middle infield with Peter for so many years, we would always go to say the same thing to the same player, which was funny, but it was also good because (as a player) it’s not like you were getting two different concepts,” Costa continued. “You’re getting the same advice with two sets of eyes to make sure you were doing things right.”

Though uncertain where time will take his mates and him, Catalano said he just wants to continue enjoying the present.

“I definitely want to coach this team for a few more years with these guys and who knows what’s going to happen a few years from now,” he said. “But I miss playing, and coaching has really filled that void. So hopefully we get to continue doing this in the future.”