LYNN – This was one of those nights you didn’t dare to miss. Not only were the city’s major politicians present, but many of its more visible private citizens as well.There were youth sports officials from throughout Massachusetts, including many of the administrators who preside over the state’s 16 Little League districts.They were there to celebrate the career of Alice O’Neil, who is stepping down after 40 years of involvement Lynn youth sports – the last 16 of which she spent as the administrator for District 16 Little League, which encompasses Lynn, Saugus, Swampscott, Nahant, Winthrop, Revere and Lynnfield in baseball; and Lynn, Swampscott, Saugus, Salem and Marblehead in softball.Click here for a photo gallery.”Alice O’Neil was a true pioneer in youth sports,” said Skip Mageary, himself a former District 16 administrator, and the man who perhaps worked most closely with O’Neil during her tenure.”She was there for her son (Patrick), but she was there for all kids,” Mageary said. “Back when she started, after the Senior Leagues, there was nothing. So she and (her late husband, Ed) established the Big League program.”And when people who were challenged couldn’t play, she set up the Challenger Little League (which was formed so that children who are physically and mentally challenged could enjoy playing baseball) too,” Mageary said.O’Neil and her family even got a limousine escort to the Knights of Columbus Hall by Lynn funeral director David J. Solimine.Several speakers rose to spell out the differences O’Neil made in their lives, but perhaps the most emotional came from School Committeewoman Patricia Capano, whose son, Nick, played for the Challenger Little League (and whose son, A.J., was a buddy); and one of the league’s former players, Jim Burt.”Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Capano said. “Challenger began when Nick was five, and at the time, there was a rule that said you couldn’t play until you were six. So I called Alice, and told her Nick was only five, and she said to me, ‘What are you calling about these rules for? Bring him down, and we’ll take care of you.'”Alice,” said Capano, “never said ‘no,’ and always said ‘try.'”Burt recalled reporting to Keaney Park on the first day of Senior League and seeing “this awful, beat-up looking station wagon drive up ? and I wondered, ‘What is THAT?’ It stopped, and out stepped Ed and Alice O’Neil.””One of the brightest lights in the US Senate, Hubert Humphrey, said that the moral test of government is how it treats those at the beginning of life – the children; how it treats those at the end of life – the elderly; and how it treats those in the shadows of life – all those with disadvantages and handicaps,” Mayor Edward J. “Chip” Clancy said. “I think if you examine the works of Alice O’Neil, you’ll see that she’s passed that moral test quite well.”Also present was former Boston Red Sox great Johnny Pesky, who – for several years – helped out with the Lynn Parks and Recreation Department’s baseball and softball clinics at Lynn Tech. Pesky, who will turn 90 years old next month, thanked O’Neil for her service to the city and for her work with Little League. His grandnephew, Mike Hickey, who was a star pitcher for Bishop Fenwick, played for Wyoma Little League.