Reid Schroeder uses his batting face to get prepared for a good hit.
With school out and the warm weather in full-swing, several Saratoga youths have been hitting the diamond for some fun summer baseball action.
According to coach Stacy Morton, the Saratoga Recreation League for baseball consists of one majors team and one minors team, and there are three or four T-ball teams. The teams are grouped according to age and open to boys and girls who play together on one team, and the season, which began the last week of May, runs through to the end of this month.
Morton, one of three coaches for the majors team, said her players are made up of 11 or 12 boys from ages 11 through 14. She began coaching the majors team three years ago with her husband, Charlie, and Heath Cline.
“My husband and I took the majors team on three years ago, and I’ve been coaching that one ever since,” Morton said. “My husband’s deployed now, so Heath Cline and Leroy Gonzalez help me coach the majors, and Ed Shiels is the coach for the minors.”
Morton said that since the last week of May her team practiced each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at the baseball field on Third Street in Saratoga, but has only played three games so far. Morton said all three games were against players from the Junior Babe Ruth baseball league in Rawlins.
Although her majors team has not won a game yet, she appreciates how well the boys work together and act as good sports after each game.
“The kids all compliment each other and there’s never a negative, and we don’t practice poor sportsmanship,” Morton said. “I even had an umpire tell me that he had never seen a team more polite and good to each other. We even have a new kid from Missouri who’s staying with his grandparents for the summer, and the kids took him in and he’s one of them now.”
Morton said the team also gives the youth something to get involved with and prevent boredom while school is out.
“There’s not much for kids to do around here but this gives them something to do and people to hang out with,” she said. “It keeps them out of trouble and keeps them physically moving. It teaches them teamwork and other things that they should be learning.”
Even with busy summer schedules in mind, Morton said she would like to start the season earlier and implement a longer season for next year, with hopes to get more kids interested and involved in the teams.
“For next year I’d like to have a clinic before signups start, so kids can come out and see if it is something they want to do, or if it’s just not for them,” she said. “I’d like to see signups go out sooner so we can start practices a lot sooner. With only one month to teach and play it’s hard to hone in on all the skills, but with more time, the kids could get more out of it. There is also no limit to how many can sign up, and we’d just create other teams if we had more kids sign up next year.”
For the 2014 season, students can register next spring near the end of the school year. For more information, call Stacy Morton at 307-710-5838.
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