There couldn’t have been a more appropriate place for the family, friends and neighbors of Jon Lieb to be last Saturday.
Many of the people who knew the public relations professional and sports enthusiast, were on the softball diamonds at Pleasantville’s Parkway Field before 9 a.m. ready to square off in an eight-team tournament. If they weren’t suited up to play, they were there to root on their favorite squad or show their support any way they could.
“Jon was a great friend to many people and this is right in his wheelhouse,” said Ed Reich, one of his friends who spoke briefly before the tournament’s first pitch. “Anyone who spent a lot of time with him knew he loved this. He loved tournaments, he was a great friend, a fierce competitor, and he loved bracketology and round robins. We couldn’t have a cornhole game without him setting up a board with bracketology and how it was going to play out in the playoffs.”
The event last weekend was the inaugural Jon Lieb Memorial Softball Tournament. It raised funds for Break the Hold, a Pleasantville-based nonprofit that focuses on mental health and suicide prevention, and the Jon Lieb Legacy Charitable Fund, which has been established to provide money for youth sports programs and facilities.
The one-pitch tournament was held a few weeks after the first anniversary of Lieb’s death early last June, where he took his own life.
Paul Dispenza, one of the tournament’s organizers, said the hope is that the tournament will be held every year to help much-needed causes and to keep Lieb’s memory alive.
“It’s been an amazing year. I can’t believe it’s been a year already,” said Dispenza, a friend and neighbor of the Lieb family. “I’m sure most of us have thought of him many times this year, and the support and prayers I know are there for the family because when I meet people, wherever it might be in Mount Pleasant, they’re always asking and thinking about Jon.”
Local businesses chipped in to provide breakfast items and drinks for the players on a warm, sticky morning. For lunch, local food trucks came by and donated a portion of the proceeds to the charities.
Lieb’s wife, Sarah, said there was no better place to be to remember her husband than on a softball field. For years, Jon had played softball and was probably the local league’s most enthusiastic supporter.
The past year has also demonstrated to Sarah Lieb and her two sons, Jaden and Nathan, about how a tight-knit community has helped her family navigate the toughest period in their lives.
“As bad as this was, we found good in it,” Sarah Lieb said. “We found the love of our community, our family, our friends have (helped) us up in a way, and I’m not just saying that, they did.”
Lieb had been an institution in the softball league for so long that many of the participating players each had their own memories that often brought smiles to their faces. John McAndrew, who had known Lieb for about 20 years, said every interaction that he ever had with him was a positive one, whether it was on the playing field or in the community.
Everyone who knew him, misses him terribly, he said.
“He was a wonderful guy, and when the games were competitive, and they often are, he was always trying to bring everybody together for the love of the game,” McAndrew said.
One of his friends and neighbors, Brian Walker, said his work schedule prevented him from playing softball but that didn’t prevent Lieb from trying to recruit him. When Lieb found out that Walker played tennis, he convinced his friend to join the tennis club.
The one constant: People always seemed to greet Lieb no matter where he went.
“Wherever you walked with Jon, you couldn’t walk more than two feet without Jon getting stopped,” Walker said. “He knew everybody. He was liked by everybody.”
Brian Halloran, a Pleasantville resident and the founder of Break the Hold, said it is critical for everyone to raise awareness for this event and familiarize people with how they can seek help for themselves or friends and loved ones.
He called Lieb a “pillar” of Pleasantville and had never heard anyone utter a bad word about him.
“This is what Jon Lieb was all about, bringing people together,” Halloran said. “Playing sports, being competitive, but being competitive in that annoying friendly way that young men do. This is Jon, and you can feel Jon here today.”
