Anglers News« Back to 1532 News Archives |
|
2023 Anglers Baseball Clinic provides opportunity for “Chatham summer youth” to practice alongside coaches and players
by Graham Dietz
Saturday, July 08, 2023
One of the best ways for young aspiring baseball players on the Cape to improve their baseball skills is to sign up for the 2023 Chatham Anglers Baseball Clinic.
“The clinic’s one of the gateways into our organization,” Chatham President Steve West said. “It’s just where we can draw in kids. In addition to running the Anglers, we’re supposed to help the youth of Chatham. Most of these kids aren’t Chatham youth, but they are summer Chatham youth.”
The Anglers Baseball Clinic has returned this season with six installments of the weekly program, and is coordinated by Chatham Assistant Coach Brock Riley, who pitched for the A’s in 2018. Assistant Coaches Dustin Williams and Marty Lees also help organize the youth program.
“The clinic started probably 30 years ago now,” West said. “The clinic is where a lot of the guys become familiar and fans of the Anglers, quite frankly. I mean, if you’re a six year old kid, you’re out there playing with the Anglers’ players, and you get a t-shirt. You become involved in the game.”
The clinic is run for boys and girls from the ages of six years old to 17, and is broken up into three groups which all run at the same time, from 10:30 a.m. to noon. The groups are divided between the ages of six to eight years, nine to 12 years and 13 to 17 years.
Additionally, the clinic is one of the best ways to get up close to players on Chatham’s roster, as many of them join practice to assist Riley and get to know the kids participating. The players show up at 11 a.m. and work until the end of the clinic each day.
“First half hour Marty and the other coaches do basic drills, warm-up stretches, and kinda talk more about the fundamentals of baseball,” West said. “Usually from 11 to 12 there’s more games being played with the players.”
The Chatham Rotary Club and the Chatham Athletic Association jointly sponsor the clinic, and campers may be registered for any single week, or any series of weeks, but not individual days. For the remaining three weeks, the cost is $100 per week. The final week is set to start July 31 and end August 4.
“We’ve got a number of bat boys out here from the clinic,” West said. “We’ve got a number of host families out of the clinic. In addition to clinic money, we’ve gotten a lot of families to become donors and members of our organization. That’s kind of the Chatham way. Saturday to Saturday rental, so people will be here at the clinic and they come back here the same week the following year.”
Many individuals have become lifelong friends from the clinic, according to West.
“There’s a lot of clinic stories,” West said. “I know one of our board members met his best friend for life in our clinic in the early 90s, and now they run Mahi Gold together.”
“The clinic’s one of the gateways into our organization,” Chatham President Steve West said. “It’s just where we can draw in kids. In addition to running the Anglers, we’re supposed to help the youth of Chatham. Most of these kids aren’t Chatham youth, but they are summer Chatham youth.”
The Anglers Baseball Clinic has returned this season with six installments of the weekly program, and is coordinated by Chatham Assistant Coach Brock Riley, who pitched for the A’s in 2018. Assistant Coaches Dustin Williams and Marty Lees also help organize the youth program.
“The clinic started probably 30 years ago now,” West said. “The clinic is where a lot of the guys become familiar and fans of the Anglers, quite frankly. I mean, if you’re a six year old kid, you’re out there playing with the Anglers’ players, and you get a t-shirt. You become involved in the game.”
The clinic is run for boys and girls from the ages of six years old to 17, and is broken up into three groups which all run at the same time, from 10:30 a.m. to noon. The groups are divided between the ages of six to eight years, nine to 12 years and 13 to 17 years.
Additionally, the clinic is one of the best ways to get up close to players on Chatham’s roster, as many of them join practice to assist Riley and get to know the kids participating. The players show up at 11 a.m. and work until the end of the clinic each day.
“First half hour Marty and the other coaches do basic drills, warm-up stretches, and kinda talk more about the fundamentals of baseball,” West said. “Usually from 11 to 12 there’s more games being played with the players.”
The Chatham Rotary Club and the Chatham Athletic Association jointly sponsor the clinic, and campers may be registered for any single week, or any series of weeks, but not individual days. For the remaining three weeks, the cost is $100 per week. The final week is set to start July 31 and end August 4.
“We’ve got a number of bat boys out here from the clinic,” West said. “We’ve got a number of host families out of the clinic. In addition to clinic money, we’ve gotten a lot of families to become donors and members of our organization. That’s kind of the Chatham way. Saturday to Saturday rental, so people will be here at the clinic and they come back here the same week the following year.”
Many individuals have become lifelong friends from the clinic, according to West.
“There’s a lot of clinic stories,” West said. “I know one of our board members met his best friend for life in our clinic in the early 90s, and now they run Mahi Gold together.”
