TEAMWORK: Yankees reliever Rafael Soriano greets students of St. Lucy’s School in The Bronx yesterday. The school was hit hard by the tragic Bronx River Parkway crash in April that claimed a family of seven, including (insets from left) mother Maria Nunez and daughters 7-year-old Niely Rosari, and 3-year-old Marly Rosario. (
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They had been checking their PDAs and chatting amongst themselves yesterday afternoon, sharing the back of a minibus en route to a Bronx school visit.
But Raul Ibanez, Boone Logan, Russell Martin and Rafael Soriano turned silent and listened when Lenny Caro, a Bronx Chamber of Commerce employee, pointed outside, onto the Bronx River Parkway, and spoke.
“It happened right there,” Caro told the Yankees players, and everyone looked with interest.
The Bronx River Parkway crash of April 29 occurred when an SUV carrying seven family members, representing three generations, hit a highway divider and plunged off the road before landing on an unoccupied part of the Bronx Zoo. Everyone in the vehicle died, devastating the family’s surviving members as well as the victims’ friends, co-workers and fellow students.
That’s why the Yankees’ contingent headed to St. Lucy’s School in The Bronx yesterday. To try to bring some smiles to a community uprooted by the death of first-grader Niely Rosario, 7, as well as her mother, Maria Nunez, and her 3-year-old sister, Marly Rosario, who planned to begin preschool at St. Lucy’s this September.
“I can’t imagine what you guys have been through,” Ibanez, a father of four, told students from kindergarten through eighth grade. “I can’t explain why this happened. There are a lot of people in your community who care about you. Our condolences for your loss. Keep focusing on your memories, and believe that God has a plan.”
“I was just trying to be honest,” Ibanez said afterward on the ride back to Yankee Stadium. “I didn’t really know what to say. What can you say, really? I can’t imagine what the families are going through, what the kids are going through. I didn’t really know what to say, but I said what I felt. It’s a tragic situation.”
Said Martin: “What I take out of it is, try to stay positive. You need to cherish every day, every moment. You never know when the end is coming.”
The crash took place on a Sunday, yet the names didn’t become public until the following day. That gave the St. Lucy’s community time to formulate a plan. Jane Stefanini, the principal, and school pastor Father Nikolin Pergjini helped console the older children, while grief counselors worked with the younger students.
Niely Rosario was “phenomenal,” teacher Nydia Torres said.
“Very friendly. Very motivated to learn,” Torres said. “Always asking questions. Very well-behaved.”
Moving on has been “very, very difficult,” she said. “You feel the emptiness in the classroom.”
Elvin Calderin, the school’s gym teacher, reached out to the Bronx Chamber of Commerce to inquire about a Yankees visit. Caro, whose business card reads “Bronx Ambassador of Goodwill,” worked with NYPD community affairs officer (for the 49th precinct) Victor DiPierro and Yankees community relations consultant Ray Negron to bring that request to fruition.
The four Yankees players emerged in the auditorium one at a time, with YES analyst Jack Curry introducing them to the roaring group, each wearing a Yankees cap provided for the occasion. The normally stoic Soriano joked around with Ibanez and Martin as Logan participated in the first question-and-answer session with Curry. The Yankees’ closer playfully peeked through a crack in the door to get a feel for the crowd number.
Soriano and his teammates slapped hands, posed for photos and signed autographs. The assignment didn’t seem particularly daunting, if you didn’t know the reason they were there. Because you knew the reason they were there, the moment felt far more powerful.
These youngsters didn’t care about the Yankees’ recent skid.
“I wasn’t thinking about that at all while we were there,” Logan said. They simply enjoyed the opportunity to meet revered athletes from their local baseball team.
“It’s more than just the games,” Martin said. “It’s how it affects the people around us.”
“This is a platform to use for good,” Ibanez said. “Being able to do that on a day like today is really, truly what it’s all about.”
It was “a good end to a bad story — for one day,” DiPierro said. And the Yankees, Negron vowed, will stay involved well past this one day, helping their community deal with what Martin rightfully called “a nightmare.”