The Long Island ducks flew together for 25 years.
As the 2025 season begins with ISLIP on Friday night, the fun Atlantic League Ball Club celebrates the highly successful (with web) footprint engraved on the island.
“It starts with the fans. Long Island has great fans who support the team like the highest level of the game,” Louford, a longtime duck outfielder who played twins in the mid-2000s and played against the Orioles in 2012, told the Post.
“It’s also great baseball. Anyone who starts the season here can finish the season in the major leagues,” Ford added an independent MLB Partner League that previously boasted huge names such as Roger Clemens and the late Ricky Henderson.
Having won four league championships since becoming a franchise in 2000, the duck also has its own Hall of Fame Star Power Guide for success.
Mets great Gary Carter managed the team in 2009, and Bud Harrelson was a fan favorite co-owner and coach known for working with kids at the team clinic.
“I coached Buddy later too,” Ford said. “He was a very attractive guy and I loved him by watching him interact with his fans and players. He was one of the best.”
Playful, the team is displaying the Pete Rose Cincinnati Reds jersey in the stadium bar area as a homage to Fracus between Harrelson and Rose during the 1973 NLCS.
However, this season, the ducks look to the future rather than the glorious days of the past.
The team installed a new grass field with bright orange base passes, and Ford called the 2025 move a “giant upgrade.”
Thanks to a field-on-field fan game between the innings and duck mascot Quackerjack, Long Island, a consistent league leader, is bolstering its home season with several firework nights that usually sell out 6,000-seat stadiums.
“It’s not just the fans, but the players love those games too,” Ford said. “We’ll take our family that night. We’re looking at a great year.”
In Boys Lacrosse, Masapequa will host Port Washington at 5pm on Friday, and Girls Lacrosse will host Kellenburg at 1pm on Saturday
