A hard-nosed Big Apple baseball coach who took his Staten Island team to the Little League World Series is accused of pulling a fast one on his competitors — by assembling an all-star lineup months ahead of schedule, The Post has learned.
Michael Zaccariello, 54, the highly successful coach of Staten Island’s South Shore Little League team, is supposed to sit back and evaluate local players in April and May before picking his all-star roster of 11- and 12-year-olds on June 1 to compete in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
But Zaccariello jumped the gun by asking parents of local players to be on his travel team, called the Federales, in the fall, critics say.
This allowed him to play and practice with those young players outside the control of the league months ahead of June 1, critics say.
“It was his way of creating or arranging a team that was going to be his all-star team a few months later,” explained the dad of a Federales player.
Little League International — the Williamsport-based organization that supervises baseball and softball play for an estimated 2.3 million players internationally between the ages of 5 and 18 — is now investigating the situation.
“Little League takes these matters very seriously,” said Patrick Wilson.
“There have been allegations made. The documentation of those allegations has been submitted to the regional office for review.’’
Ultimately, 18 players joined Zaccariello’s travel team — and 12 of them became members of his national all-star squad, which had a total of 13 members, sources said.
“He absolutely got a head start, and it would be a shame for the kids, who were pawns in this, to be punished for this coach’s actions,” said John Downey, a South Shore Little League coach.
Zaccariello, who has been coaching for 25 years on Staten Island, did not return calls for comment.
John Iorie, president of South Shore Little League, dismissed the claims against Zaccariello as “sour grapes.”
“There is nothing to look at,” insisted Iorie. “I can’t believe it’s escalated to this.”
Additional reporting Gabrielle Fonrouge