The Brooklyn baseball community is mourning the loss of longtime youth coach Jose Castro, whose decades of mentorship shaped the generations of young athletes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an incalculable loss,\u201d said parent John Ford. \u201cThere\u2019s really no words.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police say Castro and his mother were killed after a fire tore through their Brooklyn apartment Saturday. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, grief poured into the Bonnie Youth Clubhouse, where parents, players and fellow coaches gathered to remember a man many described as the heart of the organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For more than 40 years, Castro dedicated himself to coaching youth baseball in Brooklyn. Friends and families say his impact extended far beyond the diamond.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s irreplaceable,\u201d parent Juan Mercado said. \u201cYou can\u2019t find somebody who\u2019s gonna give that much of himself to this game and to this community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jerry Katzke, athletic director of the Bonnie Youth Club, said Castro\u2019s influence reached far beyond developing baseball talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver a period of years, he not only developed their baseball skills and their knowledge of the game, but their sense of sportsmanship and fair play,\u201d Katzke said. \u201cHe helped them in terms of high school and college.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neighbors also remembered Castro\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was my friend for years and years,\u201d said neighbor Luisa Jimenez. \u201cShe was a wonderful woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside the apartment, a growing memorial of candles, flowers and baseball memorabilia now honors both Castro and his mother.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bonnie Youth Club is planning a memorial for Castro next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brooklyn baseball community is mourning the loss of longtime youth coach Jose Castro, whose decades of mentorship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,610,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-243361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-local","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}