Youth baseball leagues ready to ‘PLAY BALL’
Joel Brewton | Herald-Standard
Jarred Province winds up for the pitch during a practice session for the Pony Division Pirates at Eberly Park Sunday afternoon.
Joel Brewton | Herald-Standard
Jacob Swartzentruber lines up a catch during a practice session for the Pony Division Pirates at Eberly Park on Sunday afternoon.
Joel Brewton | Herald-Standard
Ryan Masi goes up to bat during a practice session for the Pony Division Pirates at Eberly Park Sunday afternoon.
With every April comes a few certainties. The first full month of spring begins with April Fool’s Day and tax day marks the mid-point.
Easter happens in April more often than not, and the same could be said for rain, which annually wreaks havoc on the high school spring sports schedules.
What else happens every April? Youth baseball and softball takes over the area, that’s what. Registrations are over with and copies of birth certificates secured for several thousand boys and girls from Fayette and surrounding counties.
Next up (pardon the pun) is Opening Day or in this case, opening days. Leagues in the area all have their own opening day festivities.
Saturday, April 26, is the most common opening day among area leagues, with a few of the District 9 Little League-sanctioned organizations opening earlier, as is the Jefferson Township Youth Organization.
Connellsville and Dunbar Little League open play on Saturday, April 12, with a full slate of games in the Major Division. Yough and Rostraver open on Tuesday, April 15, and the Bullskin-Smithfield openers and those of Mount Pleasant Little League opening on Saturday, April 26.
Jefferson Township Youth Organization begins play on Sunday, April 20, with many of the league’s 150 kids in action. The league will host
a Pinto tournament on Saturday, April 26. All other leagues, including Hopwood Area Recreation Council (HARC), open on April 26.
It’s quite a cumbersome task to put together even one youth baseball or softball team, let alone organizing entire leagues. Help comes from many areas, as area league officials can attest. No help is ever turned away.
At R.W. Clark, league president Trevor Waligora was quite thankful that North Union Township supervisors have continually lent more than just a helping hand.
“The township has supported us very well, and we appreciate all that the supervisors do for us,” Waligora said, in reference to current supervisors Rob Tupta, Tom Kumor and Curt Matthews.
“We handle field maintenance,” Tupta said. “This is one of the largest leagues around, with around 600 kids playing. It’s to the point where we could use another field.”
Several area leagues have earned matching-fund grants from the Pittsburgh Pirates, with the Clark league perhaps leading the way with a pair of $5,000 grants so far. Jefferson Township also has been awarded $3,500 through the Pirates’ Fields For Kids program.
HARC offers many leagues and many age groups and participates in interleague play like other leagues. It also fields an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team in the early teenager age group that is very popular and very competitive.
Numbers have somewhat leveled off in baseball, with players changing leagues from time to time. Fast-pitch softball is on the rise throughout the area, which helps explain why many high school teams are more competitive now than they were five years ago.
“Numbers-wise, we are about where we always are,” said Kevin Brown, treasurer of the Jefferson Township Youth Organization and president of the township Parks Board. The league offers T-ball for kids as young as 3 1/2 all the way up to high school seniors. Combined with softball, the league will have about 150 players.
District 9’s Little League-sanctioned leagues have the highest registration, with roughly 1,000 kids signed up for leagues in Connellsville, Dunbar, Smithfield, Bullskin, Rostraver, Mount Pleasant and Yough/Westmoreland. The league offers T-ball for 4-5-year-olds, coach pitch for 6-7-year-olds, Minor League for 7-11-year-olds and Major League for 9-12-year-olds.
While the numbers seem solid, they are below the standard set in the league that crowns an official Little League World Series champion every August.
“Numbers are as low as I’ve seen them in a while,” said Bob Swope, District 9 administrator and Section 2 coordinator of Little League International. “Connellsville used to sign up 650 kids. This year, they have 275, which is still tops in District 9. There are a lot of reasons. One is that there are a lot more middle school teams now and kids can’t play both. Plus, we are losing a lot of kids to rec leagues because they don’t want to go by Little League rules.”
Little League rules stipulate that league play must be completed early, with an All-Star team selected. All-Star teams compete for the District 9 championship, then move on to regional and state championship tournaments. State champions could eventually make it to the Little League World Series in Williamsport.
“It hurts us in terms of getting more kids,” said Swope, who is in Minneapolis, Minn., for the Little League World Congress. “We have to start early to get the league play completed by June.”
That is to the benefit of leagues like HARC and Clark, which are more than happy to welcome any ballplayer. Numbers overall are to the point that many leagues have only one team and only a few age groups. That has forced a kind of merging of leagues, in an effort to have more games for kids all over the area, according to Waligora.
“We have established interleague play with leagues from Smithfield, Fairchance and Masontown,” Waligora said. “It’s because some leagues only have one team, but it’s better for the kids to get out and play games. Our numbers are about the same as they were last year.”
Bailey Park used to have baseball leagues, but not anymore. After a few years without baseball in the summer, the local facility decided not to start it up again. The feeling was it would be hard to convince enough of the kids who left for Clark (North Union Township) and HARC (South Union Township) to come back to Bailey Park.
But Bailey Park will have some youth baseball this spring and summer. The park, recently renovated to accommodate the Uniontown Area High School team, will host rained out games from R.W. Clark. “It helps them because they don’t have to re-work their schedules to accommodate make-up games,” said Eric Sampson, an employee at Bailey Park.
“If you are rained out at Clark on Monday, you’ll likely be playing at Bailey Park on Tuesday or Wednesday.”
The Clark league fields T-ball, minor, junior, pony and senior teams in baseball and 8-under, 10-under, 12-under, 14-under and 18-under teams in softball and formulating a workable schedule is no easy task.
“We have 13 T-ball teams, so we can’t play 10-under softball games on the same field,” said Waligora.
“Last year was out 40th and we had some special features on opening day. This year, we’re keeping it simple, just play ball. But our numbers are solid and we’re hoping for another great year.”