Robert Abate was a Canadian sports coach and the driving force behind the Elizabeth Playground sports teams in Toronto. The Lizzies, as they were known, won more than 150 titles at the city, provincial, and national levels in baseball, basketball, football, and hockey.

Among the players who competed for the Lizzies were Lionel Conacher

Lionel Conacher

Lionel Pretoria Conacher, MP , nicknamed "The Big Train", was a Canadian athlete and politician. Voted the country's top athlete of the first half of the 20th century, he won championships in numerous sports. His first passion was football; he was a member of the 1921 Grey Cup champion Toronto...

, Nig Eisen, Goody Rosen

Goodwin Rosen

Goodwin George "Goody" Rosen was a Canadian center fielder in Major League Baseball. From 1937 through 1946, Rosen played outfield for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants...

 and Alex Levinsky

Alex Levinsky

Alexander "Mine Boy" Levinsky was an American professional ice hockey Defenseman who played nine seasons in the National Hockey League for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Blackhawks and New York Rangers....

.

In September 1929, Abate was charged with criminal negligence when a car he was said to have been driving near Bowmanville, Ontario

Bowmanville, Ontario

Bowmanville is the largest community in the Municipality of Clarington in Durham Region, Ontario, Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario about 75 km east of Toronto and 15 km east of Oshawa along Highway 2...

 crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with another vehicle. Two 15-year-old members of the Elizabeth Playground bantam baseball team were killed in the accident. Abate initially said he was driving but later said that one of the boys killed in the accident had been behind the wheel. In November, Abate was found guilty of doing grievous bodily harm, and was given a $1,000 fine. His driver's license was suspended for six months.

Abate was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame

Canada's Sports Hall of Fame

Canada's Sports Hall of Fame is a hall of fame established in 1955 to "preserve the record of Canadian sports achievements and to promote a greater awareness of Canada's heritage of sport." It is located at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Alberta...

 in 1976. He died in Kitchener, Ontario

Kitchener, Ontario

The City of Kitchener is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It was the Town of Berlin from 1854 until 1912 and the City of Berlin from 1912 until 1916. The city had a population of 204,668 in the Canada 2006 Census...

in 1981 at age 87. In 1990, the Elizabeth Recreation Centre in Toronto was renamed the Bob Abate Community Recreation Centre.