Just Another Peaceful Day Of Youth Baseball On Long Island

At first glance it's the story you've heard a hundred times before: Little League coach benches player for swearing; player calls dad on cell phone; dad and uncle arrive and pummel the coach unconscious on the pitcher's mound; arrests ensue. But this one has a few twists: Mob connections, federal wiretapping, gratuitous Mark Gastineau involvement ... and is that an escaped raccoon on this guy's head?

Two loutish Long Island brothers were arrested after they beat a baseball coach in front of the coach's son and the other terrified 11-year-olds on his team, cops said Wednesday. Frank Basile, 48, and Roger Basile, 43, both of Bellmore (Long Island), were charged with third-degree assault after beating coach James Edge so badly that he was taken to a hospital with a concussion and other injuries, police said.

Pictured here is Frank Basile, who was arrested at the field. He and his brother own the Hudson & McCoy restaurant in Freeport, NY, located on Long Island, which the New York Post describes as "a formerly mobbed-up fish-and-chips eatery." Hudson & McCoy indeed has an interesting history. According to a 2002 New York Times article, it was the center of a U.S. Attorneys Office investigation involving three major New York crime families, including the Gambinos and the Lucheses. My favorite graph:

The prosecutors said the Luchese involvement became quite specific, including an order directing ''the nominal owners of the restaurant, Roger and Frank Basile,'' to buy bread from Salvatore Cambria, whom they identified as a soldier in the Colombo family known as Sallie Bread.

For other (unsubstantiated) tidbits, please see the Newsday message board, which, by the way, makes our comments section look like the convent in The Sound of Music:

These two guys are mobbed up. They used to own Sprats on the Water and Sprats on Land as well as several other night clubs in Nassau County. Frank is good friends with John Gotti Jr. and was also linked to the "Pizza connection" of the 70's and 80's in which herion was smuggled in pizza doe. Being a former employee (many years ago) I have seen these guys do a lot worse. You watch theses charges will go away fast. They are both sorry excuses for a parent. — NY CC, San Jose, CA

Call the Dept. of Game & Wildlife. I found the missing racoon from the Nassau game farm, it's on Rogers head. — Pete, Greenport, NY

Basile is also known, according to the Daily News, as an accomplice in the beating of a football fan in an Island Park restaurant, to which former New York Jets lineman Mark Gastineau pleaded guilty in 1991.

Methinks young Basile is going to have a hard time finding a baseball team that will take him in 2008. Just a hunch.

Brothers Busted For Beat-Down Of LI Youth Baseball Coach [NY Daily News] Kids' Dad And Uncle 'Pummel' L.I. Coach [New York Post] Prosecutors Say Wiretaps Picked Up Chit-Chat Revealing Mob Activities [New York Times] Newsday Message Board