No future pitching coach would suggest it, but none would question, either. When you’re this age you play by instinct…and to have fun! (Press Pros Feature Photos)
It doesn’t cost $250 for a family of five to attend, and it doesn’t cost $1,500 for a twelve-year-0ld to play. What wrapped up this weekend in Versailles was baseball for the sake of fun, and family…and no one worried about spin rate!
Versailles, OH – To a veteran observer of the game, it’s easy to enjoy what Craig Stammen and a corps of volunteers in Versailles lends to a simple game of pitch and catch…hit and run…focused specifically on young boys, ages 7 to 14.
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Play baseball and have fun.
Create some memories.
Publisher/editor Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA sports and Ohio State baseball for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Dreams of the future.
Appreciate the game for as long as you can…with that special group of guys you call friends.
And let no one criticize or demean for lack of spin rate and velocity.
Let no one be discouraged because at twelve someone judged that they weren’t good enough to play, and weren’t asked.
Let no one be embarrassed because they didn’t have $1,500 to be among the ‘select’.
Somehow Stammen and his friends in Versailles have managed to do all that, and have for years…for the sake of the essentials. Boys playing baseball.
And boys who’ve never heard of Prep Baseball Report, or Perfect Game…or a recruiting profile.
Naivete’ is a wonderful thing when you’re twelve…of not knowing what you don’t know. I couldn’t help but laugh this weekend when talented twelve-year-old Garrett Siefring (from Fort Recovery) admitted to me that he didn’t even know who Craig Stammen is, or where he had played.
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“I really don’t,” he admitted, a little puzzled over the question. “Someone told me he was major something…that’s all I know.”
Oh my. Out of the mouths of the young, no doubt! I’m just here to play baseball.
Major something, indeed!
It if comes naturally, so much the better. Fort Recovery’s Blake Homan delivers a pitch in this weekend’s Stammen Classic.
Someone once said that a picture is worth a thousand words…easier to enjoy, easier to understand. You can see it all…skill, competitiveness, joy, and frustration. And no words were ever more descriptive than the above photo of 11-year-old pitcher Jack Seinbrunner, from Versailles. No pitching coach would ever teach it, but none would ever question, either. When you’re eleven you play the game – do what you can – to have fun.
Witness the intent and focus of 12-year-old Blake Homan, from Fort Recovery. There’s a lot of things right about the way he throws the baseball, despite the fact that his hands are barely big enough to grip, or spin it!
You see kids who are obviously blessed with dads who played, and who spend the time now to play with them. How do you tell? Because they know when to backhand the ball, and when to catch it with your open palm. Sometimes you see kids who step with the wrong foot when they learn to throw. But in Versailles, where dads teach their kids, you never see it.
And in a seven-year-old game on Saturday I observed a little second baseman literally flop on a ground ball to stop it, like a chicken covering her brood. Not exactly good hands at that age, but it doesn’t matter. Because as soon as he realized he’d stopped the baseball he was on his feet and throwing it to first. He had been taught…you might still have a chance to get an out. His throw beat the runner by a step!
Just like Elly (De La Cruz), Max Bruns snaps a throw to first for an out.
Once upon a time we were young, and we threw a baseball incessantly. The minute the bell rang for noon hour at school, we were assembled on the tiny playground diamond within minutes. And one of the favorite games we played was called ‘burn out’, where you literally tried to throw the ball harder than someone could catch.
Without anyone ever being there to coach, we learned to throw…overhand, sidearm, even submarine…any way to get it there harder, and more accurately. And when the games began we took that knowledge to the field, because you can’t turn the double play by winding up to throw. It’s has to be a snap throw, and by instinct…like St. Henry’s Max Bruns (pictured, above).
In today’s culture of ‘select’ baseball you might not get that chance…because by the time you’re 14 you might be so discouraged that you quit the game altogether.
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“We’re losing nearly half of the future baseball gene pool because kids are giving up the game before they mature physically enough to play it,” said a major league scout at last year’s Big Ten Tournament. “We’re losing too many of the ‘tweeners’ and the late bloomers.”
And those who know will tell you that about half of the baseball’s hall of fame is comprised of late bloomers in the game, including the great Brooks Robinson.
Hard landing…sliding is not one of the five tools of baseball, and a skill you learn, usually from watching the older kids.
Craig Stammen laughs at Garrett Siefring’s inability to identify him, just two years removed from his playing 13 years in the major leagues. But recognition is no longer his passion in baseball. Seeing the next generation learn and love the game…is!
“The best thing is telling them something that the whole baseball world knows, but they’ve never been exposed to it,” he explains. “And when they figure it out for the first time they literally have the biggest smile they’ve ever had. It’s Christmas morning when they learn to field a ground ball and throw it to first with a crow hop. Something as simple as that.
“Right now the only ‘Major something’ that concerns me is learning how to run a 7u baseball tournament,” he adds with a smile. “These kids are in their own little world. Maybe they’ll become major leaguers, and maybe not. If they don’t know me it’s no big deal. But with a tournament like this hopefully there’s someone in every neighborhood who believes in baseball, who can pass on the values of baseball, the opportunities and the lessons learned. That’s what’s important…what’s beautiful about baseball. It starts with your dad passing it down to you, and when you get older the older kids teach the younger kids. It works that way at every level.
He got it all…New Bremen’s Landon Overman (7u) was flying high following his home run Sunday against Coldwater.
“When I was a rookie the veteran players taught me how to play big league baseball. And by the time I retired I was the veteran teaching the rookies how to play big league baseball. That’s how it works. The learning process – being a mentor – never stops.”
So no, there was no Prep Baseball Report.
No radar, no metrics, no rankings…and no one caught the exit velocity of Landon Overman’s home run in the 7u championship game between New Bremen and Coldwater. All he knew was that it went over the fence in right field. His feet barely touched the ground as he rounded the bases. His team won. And he won with his friends in front of his town.
Memories that will sustain him and his teammates far longer than a five-hour drive to Louisville for a travel tournament in 98-degree heat, and the justification of it being better competition. And then, of course, a five-hour drive home.
More incentive to play baseball for as long as you can…to improve…to learn…even a late bloomer!
Ask Landon Overman.
Ask Garrett Siefring.
Community baseball at home. Nothing could be better.
You know….Ol’ Major something’s tournament!
Knapke Kitchens and Baths, of Versailles, proudly sponsors youth baseball coverage on Press Pros.
