Anthony Littere has run to first thousands of times.
He has stretched his leg to get to first ahead of the throw probably on a good chunk of them. But there was one moment that changed his life and his playing career.
Flying down the first baseline during Game 1 of the Section VI Class AAA championship series against Lancaster, as he stretched his leg towards first, he crumpled to the ground. Littere tore his lateral collateral ligament, forcing him to watch Niagara Falls’ historic trip to states from the dugout.
But there is no doubt in his mind and his coach’s mind that if Littere was there, the Falls could have gone even further with their leader. Litters’s absence was especially felt in the team’s 10-inning state semifinal loss to Saratoga Springs.
“We lose in the Final Four against Saratoga and it goes 10 innings,” Niagara Falls head coach Rob Augustino said. “There’s no way that he doesn’t have an impact somewhere on that game in 10 innings offensively. We lost that-bat five at-bats, six at-bats. … There’s a hit coming somewhere, at least one or two. So that’s where it really kind of hurt.”
When he was recovering from the injury, Littere had some bad days, some days where it was a struggle to get through his physical therapy sessions. But Littere knew that the recovery process was not going to be easy and that he was just going to have to continue to work hard to help rehabilitate his leg.
While he was recovering, Littere stayed in regular contact with Augustino, who also coaches him in soccer.
All that hard work paid off when Littere made his return to the diamond on March 25, when Niagara Falls took on Roy-Hart with the senior going 2 for 3, with two runs and a walk. It was the first of eight multi-hit games he has had this season.
“It felt great. I mean playing with the boys again was awesome,” Littere said.
Now, the SUNY Niagara commit has carried that hot start into a successful season for a team that sits in first place in the Niagara Frontier League. This season, Littere is hitting .455 with two home runs, 17 RBIs and six stolen bases. On the mound, Littere has a 4-0 record with a 1.05 ERA with 58 strikeouts and a .190 batting average against.
During his career, Littere has hit over .400 every year. On the bump, Littere throws a fastball, a curveball and a change-up.
“It makes things easier,” Augustino said. “It makes things a lot easier. If I were to say that if there’s anything that helps a coach is knowing that you got a guy that throws strikes and can be somewhat dominant at times, plays phenomenal defense and then hits .500 at the plate … I think that’s exactly a coach’s dream.”
When he is in the dugout, Littere is trying to help his teammates have the success that he has had with constant instructions on how they can improve at the plate or defensively. It leads Augustino to posit that whenever Littere’s playing career comes to an end, he will be a coach.
But before that, he still has a playing career. In his return to the lineup with the Wolverines, he has been a steadying presence with at-bats that Augustino calls “professional”. If he has a bad game, he knows what he did not do well at the dish and how to fix it.
“Just go back to the basics,” Littere said. “That’s really it, look at what I used to do and what did help and just … keep a routine going.”
Defensively, Littere is very positionally versatile having played shortstop, third base and pitcher this year. His most played position this year is at shortstop where he has played 44.0 innings.
“Well when we get into any kind of situation, we know that we have flexibility because if someone’s already at short, and say, he’s pitching, I’m not putting him at short,” Augustino said. “I can put him somewhere else. He can play first for that matter too. … The last four, five years, we had Anthony Savino killing it over at short, so he bounced around and he was just as good at those other positions as he is at short.”