New Jersey Baseball Recruits & Prospects
Window of Opportunity: Matt Roland
According to Answers.com, the odds of becoming a professional ball player, in any sport, are 837 to 1. Those represent long odds, no question, except to spirited, young ball players with visions of advancing as far as their abilities will take them. As far as they are concerned, the prospects for achieving their goals depend almost entirely on their individual levels of motivation and commitment to hard work. For Matthew Roland of Springfield, New Jersey, the motivation is there. New Jersey Baseball Magazine™ recently caught up with Matthew and his father, Bob, at the new Frozen Ropes of Union (see also Frozen Ropes of Union at www.njbaseballmag.com).
Matt, presently a sophomore at Jonathan Dayton High School in Springfield, “has played baseball since he was five years-old,” as his Dad explains. While playing for Little League teams in both Springfield and Union, Matt appeared on “every All-Star team.”
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Bullpen Sponsor
Frozen Ropes
 As everyone in the baseball training industry knows by now, the Frozen Ropes franchise system occupies a significant niche in the national market. With over 40 franchises operating nationally and even one in Verona, Italy, more coaches and parents everywhere view Frozen Ropes as the go-to training facility for players of any age to learn the finer points of the greatest game on earth. New Jersey Baseball Magazine tracked down Bill Connolly, Bob Roland and staff in November ’09 for an update on the two year-old Frozen Ropes of Union.
The first observation you make when you enter the converted warehouse at 60 Milltown Road is the friendly reception you receive from the Frozen Ropes staff. Operating as cash businesses in a recovering, consumer economy, baseball training academies such as Frozen Ropes have nonetheless appeared all across the country.
Click here to read more...
|
New Jersey Baseball Recruits & Prospects
Sharing the Wealth: Anthony Lebron
 You would not expect a ten year-old ball player to have aspirations beyond having fun and trying to make the plays he sees his heroes make at the professional level. Anthony Lebron of Paterson, NJ enjoys baseball as much as any kid you know. He loves watching Derek Jeter make “amazing plays and A-Rod hit game winning home runs.” He marvels at Mark Texeira’s bat speed and fielding prowess at 1st base; and, he particularly admires Jorge Posada’s “glove movement, his soft hands.”
Some fairly sophisticated observations for an average ten year-old, right? Except that Anthony Lebron does not resemble an average ten year-old.
Click here to read more...
U.S. Baseball Online Feature
American Legion World Series
by Bill Wells
 Jordan Dean admitted Berryhill Post 165 of Midland, Mich., was just happy to be at the 2008 American Legion World Series.
This year, however, Dean and a veteran Berryhill team wanted more – and they got it.
After winning its state and regional tournaments, Berryhill went undefeated at the national tournament en route to winning the 2009 World Series title Aug. 14-18 at Fargo, N.D.
“The program... we’ve won way more than our share of state tournaments,” said Steve Cronkright, in his 16th season as the Berryhill manager. “We keep going back and working hard. You never imagine winning the last World Series game.
Click here to read more...
|
Should My Child Choose College
or Go Pro?
by Kevin A. Pollock
Professional baseball scouts like to point out that of all the thousands of players who play baseball each year, only a few are chosen in the draft.
Ultimately, your high school graduate will have to decide one of three things: Does he go pro? Does he go to college? Does he quit and do something else?
Some of the reasons to go to college include:
- The fact that a player drafted out of college has a higher chance of making it to the majors
- The college experience
- The professional team is not offering enough of a signing bonus to justify losing your amateur status
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Guest Editorial
Dream or Nightmare
A Bill Wells Editorial
One of the mottos for Cooperstown Dreams Park (CDP) is “Live the Dream,” or something of that nature. Having been a head coach at CDP, one of the aspiring, youth sporting events in the country, I’ve found that phrase to be mostly true.
For a few teams at this year’s CDP Week 12, however, that motto fell far short of its intended purpose. Due to the poor decisions by a handful of adults, youthful baseball dreams turned into baseball nightmares.
Massively lopsided scores were the talk of this year’s tournament, and those scores and the people involved have brought unwanted, negative, national attention to CDP and the winning teams.
I’m very lucky: I’ve been able to attend CDP the last two years as a head coach.
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Feature Story
Magic Sports
Walt Disney said that if you can dream it, you can do it. The Voice that spoke to Ray Kinsella in the movie “Field of Dreams” said, “If you build it he will come.” And now, Ron Nametko of Manchester, New Jersey, says that both are right. Like Walt Disney and Ray Kinsella before him, Ron has a dream; and, with a little of the right Magic – Magic Sports, that is – he’s convinced it will become a reality before too long.
 To be precise, Ron has a vision for Magic Sports Tournament and Health Complex, a multi-sport, tournament, training, instructional, multi-service sports and health center unlike any other. Magic Baseball, a travel team that got its start in 1999, started him thinking. But it was not until he saw Cooperstown Dreams Park (CDP) that the idea began to take shape.
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Feature Story
 Supply Meets Demand
In case anyone has missed it, economic conditions have severely impacted life in American society as we know it. Being the recession proof industry that it is, though, baseball still presents opportunities to capitalize on an investment. Diversification still optimizes returns, supply still meets demand, and hard work still translates into the promise of achievement.
For hard working Ryan Flannery, the 2009 season looms promising. The former Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) hurler continues his rocket rise in professional baseball as he prepares to enter class A competition. Drafted from FDU during his senior season, Ryan spent his summer last year as a middle reliever and closer for the Rookie League’s Gulf Coast Yankees.
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Feature Story
Vic Walker Tournament Returns
by Frank Colabella
 When you think of people who have a passion for baseball in general and for youth baseball in particular, you need look no farther than Dave Wintermute and Richard Roy of Lambertville. Between them, they bring a zest to the game that youth baseball advocates everywhere may emulate.
Dave Wintermute, otherwise known as “Wink” to his neighbors and friends in Lambertville, may rightfully claim the title of “Father of Youth Baseball” in the Lambertville-West Amwell area, while Richard Roy, fast to follow in Wink’s footsteps, will undoubtedly become his heir apparent.
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Feature Story
The Fred Hill Sports Academy
 To hear Coach Jimmy Hill and Coach Pete Connell tell it, you would no doubt agree that it’s a no-brainer. Training young ball players in the fundamentals of baseball, that is. New Jersey Baseball caught up with these ambitious, resourceful owners of The Fred Hill Sports Academy (FHSA) in late summer 2008.
Open for business only since October 2007, the FHSA has already achieved an impressive following in the peaceful town of Verona, New Jersey, and its surrounding communities. Players and teams from the neighboring towns of Montclair, Fairfield, Cedar Grove, and the Caldwells, among others, have frequented FHSA’s state-of-the art facility, and the list is growing.
Click here to read more...
NJB Feature Story
Calling ‘Em As She Sees ‘Em
 Carolyn Malmi has “loved baseball since she was a kid” growing up in Chicago. She played girls’ softball until she turned sixteen years-old, when she reached sophomore year of high school. She played the game well enough to earn a roster spot on the girls’ U.S. Junior Olympic team that went to Amsterdam in 2001.
Interestingly, she chose not to continue playing girls’ scholastic softball past tenth grade. When asked about that Carolyn explains that she really wanted to play baseball, but “didn’t know girls could play baseball.” She means, of course, that girls do not receive encouragement to play baseball because American society generally does not expect them to have the interest, let alone the ability, to play sports typically reserved for boys.
When it comes to umpiring, however, the twenty-three year-old arbiter breaks that societal mold. Ump Malmi has umpired baseball for four seasons now, the last two at Cooperstown Dreams Park (CDP) in upstate New York, and the experience has lit a new baseball fire for her. Aspirations that she once had for playing the national pastime now focus on umpiring.
Click here to read more...
|
New Jersey Baseball Feature Story
Keeping It In The Family
 Growing up in a family of athletes brings a variety of expectations and pressures with which most of us are unfamiliar. Not so for Brock Podgurski. His father, Walt Podgurski, was a 1st Team All-State player in high school, a 1st Team All-American in college, and was drafted by the Minnesota Twins. Brock’s younger brother, Ben, played on the 12 year-old Cal Ripken State championship team, and both younger sisters play softball on their local recreation league teams.
Keeping baseball in the family has its precedent. The brothers Alou and Niekro, and the father-son tandem of Ken Griffey and Ken Griffey, Jr., come readily to mind.
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Feature Story
Marvelous Maeve
The Amazin’ Mets’ Marvelous Marv Throneberry Fans of the game – particularly Mets’ fans – will no doubt recall Marvelous Marv Throneberry, who played first base for the Amazin’ Mets of the early-to-mid-1960s. Long-time Mets fans remember Marvelous Marv as a tall, soft-spoken, slugger who brought infrequent but impressive power to the plate and, well, butter fingers to the field.
Nearly a half-century later, another young player emerges who commands the same nickname, but this time for all the right reasons. Meet Marvelous Maeve Ducas, a nine year-old phenom from Scranton, Pennsylvania who dazzles on offense and defense for a boys’ little league baseball team called Tim Wagner’s Sporting Goods.
Maeve started playing baseball innocently enough. She is the youngest of four children and, at the tender, young age of seven years-old...
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Feature Story
Realizing the Dream
 Like most 17 year-olds with a passion for baseball, Anthony Sicuranza of Harrington Park, New Jersey, has dreamed of playing the game and rubbing elbows with the best of the best. He has favorite ball players whom he follows and tries to emulate, he plays third base on his community rec team, and he can recite little known facts about the game that many of us have forgotten.
 He says that he remembers being a fan of baseball ever since he “saw Wade Boggs ride the horse” after the New York Yankees clinched the 1996 World Series. It was the first time the Bronx Bombers had won the series in nine years. Fittingly, Anthony was five years-old at the time.
Click here to read more...
Baseball Biomechanics
by Frank Colabella
The 21st century is here, where technology and science meet baseball. For years motion capture has been around for video games and the elite golfer and major league baseball players. Here a sports motion is recorded with sensors and a 3-D computer generated motion is created. This motion can pick up on flaws in the human body, which if corrected then can prevent injury and better a pitcher or hitter.
Injury prevention is crucial to a young athlete’s development. Doctors nationwide are reporting a growing number of young pitchers with serious arm injuries. Most injuries are coming from inefficiencies in pitching, muscle imbalances in the body from lack of exercise, and over use which the body cannot handle. One tool elite athlete’s use is to have athletic trainers, physical therapists and team physicians evaluate who then recommend for a 3-d motion capture analysis. That term is used way too loosely in the baseball and golf industry. Many think you take a camera record the motion and the view. Analyze and compare to a major league player. Things have changed!!
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Feature Story
Quiet Confidence
 Every so often we meet a young pitcher who embodies the best qualities of a seasoned competitor – an earnest, unrelenting presence on the mound coupled with a modest, unassuming personality. Few fit that description better than Casey Clark, a junior southpaw for Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
A graduate of Dave Gallagher’s Baseball Academy, Casey approaches his junior season with impressive credentials. In addition to playing in his District Little League tournament at age 10, he pitched for his 16 year-old, Pony League All-Star team, recording the team’s only win in the Eastern Region tournament, won a semi-final game in the Mercer County Tournament, pitched above his level on the Lawrence Senior Legion team, and became a reliable starter for his varsity baseball team when only a sophomore. He enters the Spring ’09 campaign as Notre Dame’s ace of the staff
Click here to read more...
New Jersey Baseball Feature Story
Born to Pitch
 You could almost say that Nick Nametko was born to play baseball. The 6’3” 230 lb. junior pitcher for Manchester High School in Ocean County has played some form of organized baseball since the age of four. That’s right, since the age of four. If he was not born, literally, to play the game, he certainly comes close to that distinction.
In fact, you might even say that he was born to pitch. Aside from some brief experience playing second base in Little League, he has performed as a pitcher his entire young life. It seemed to always come easy for him. He has great footsteps to follow, excellent training, consistent support from his parents, and the physical talent and mental toughness to succeed.
Click here to read more...
|
Upcoming Events at the Yogi Berra Museum
Back
