It’s with extreme excite­ment that Friends of Base­ball would like to announce an amaz­ing and unique oppor­tu­nity to dis­trib­ute $1 Mil­lion worth of adi­das cleats to youth base­ball play­ers in Ore­gon and through­out the US. Let me clar­ify, this is 2 semi –truck trail­ers full of over 11,000 cleats! Wow, we are pumped!

Over the last few weeks FOB has been work­ing with our val­ued part­ners at adi­das, fig­ur­ing out a way to get these in the hands and on the feet of those who need and deserve them the most. Through care­ful plan­ning and con­sid­er­a­tion, we found a way to dis­trib­ute the cleats to 22, 500-cleat “hubs” across the US charg­ing a min­i­mal ship­ping and han­dling fee of $3/pair which will go back into the FOB fund – help­ing FOB stay sus­tain­able well into 2013! Words can’t express our excite­ment and appre­ci­a­tion to be a part of this dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gram over the com­ing months. The chance to not only help through­out our home state, but to expand fur­ther into the US, for the first time, is price­less for our orga­ni­za­tion and we can’t wait to see how this plays out. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, click here!

We will be sure to keep you posted on progress and share pic­tures of this pro­gram so you can share in our excite­ment first hand. Thanks to all of our sup­port­ers and part­ner providers like adi­das, we would not be here and able to help with­out you!

We’ve been work­ing with some very deserv­ing orga­ni­za­tion in recent months and are thrilled to be part­ner­ing our resources with the fol­low­ing organizations:

Yamhill Carl­ton Base­ball is a won­der­ful orga­ni­za­tion that’s work­ing hard to bring back the base­ball pro­gram in their com­mu­nity.  They’re busy restor­ing their High School fields through some amaz­ing in-kind sup­port from their friends and neigh­bors.  Friends of Base­ball will be pro­vid­ing $1000 to pur­chase four reg­u­la­tion bats for their High School Program.

Willam­ina High School has found amaz­ing sup­port for devel­op­ing a new “Home Field” for their com­mu­nity.  Through grants and in-kind sup­port from fam­i­lies who “have that place in their heart” for their base­ball pro­gram they’re very close to final­iz­ing this won­der­ful new field.  We saw this pro­gram round­ing third and have autho­rized a $2,500 grant in help­ing them reach home …

South­west Port­land Lit­tle League  came to the real­iza­tion that their play­ing fields were dete­ri­o­rat­ing at a rapid pace.  Poor upkeep from the munic­i­pal­i­ties has made some of these fields mar­gin­ally playable.  The South­west Port­land Lit­tle League Board has cre­ated a fund to take on one to two fields each year in order to restore them to their glory.  This type of plan­ning and com­mu­nity sup­port is what Friends of Base­ball is all about.  A grant of $2,500 will be added to this fund that will ensure the safety of our game for years to come in this area.

Colton High School, Roo­sevelt High School and Madi­son High School recently received $3,000 in bat­ting gloves to out­fit their Var­sity Teams.  These are teams with great tra­di­tions who have very lim­ited resources avail­able in their com­mu­nity.  In Part­ner­ship with Nike, we were able to give these teams a Boost for their sea­son.  And, thanks to the gen­eros­ity of Chris Carter we were recently able to present a $500 gift cer­tifi­cate from League Direct to Lents Lit­tle League for new equip­ment.  Thanks for your con­tin­ued sup­port Nike and Chris!

Bill “Space­man” Lee and his newest fans…

On March 22^nd Friends of Base­ball held their sec­ond annual Film Fes­ti­val.  This year we had the plea­sure of screen­ing “High and Out­side,” a doc­u­men­tary on the life and career of Bill “Space­man” Lee.  This very suc­cess­ful event brought in an enthu­si­as­tic crowd who helped us to raise in excess of $16,000 to be ded­i­cated to our pro­grams that  assist Oregon’s under­served teams and play­ers.  Thanks Bill, and thanks to all those who attended and par­tic­i­pated in this essen­tial event for FOB.

Bill “Space­man” Lee tak­ing some time for his young fans…a true gentleman.

In order to cre­ate a true the­ater expe­ri­ence, we decided to open up the bal­cony seat­ing for the show­ing of our movie, “High and Out­side.”  Please join us at the beau­ti­ful Scot­tish Rite Cen­ter, 1512 SW Mor­ri­son St. for the “Free” screen­ing of Bill “Spaceman’s” Doc­u­men­tary on Thurs­day March 22nd!  With such a large and beau­ti­ful screen­ing venue, we wanted to reach out to all our Friends of Base­ball Fans; our recep­tion venue can not pos­si­bly fill this the­ater.  We appre­ci­ate you; come hear Bill and see a great movie on us! Please arrive at 7:15 in time to get seated, movie will start at 7:45. Bal­cony seat­ing avail­able on a first come first serve basis.  To find out more and to make your recep­tion reser­va­tions fol­low this link: http://friendsofbaseball.org/filmfestival 

The Bald Faced Truth!

It has been recently announced that John Con­zano and 95.5 The Game will con­duct a live remote for John’s Sports Radio show from the 2012 Friends of Base­ball Film Fes­ti­val! This oppor­tu­nity came thanks to Safeway’s gen­er­ous sup­port of Friends of Base­ball. We are lin­ing up some great inter­views and guests for this pro­gram. I can hardly wait for the “Bald-Faced Truth,” when Bill “Space­man” Lee comes on the show! 

Could Tick­ets to Fen­way Park for a game between the “Yanks & Sox” be on your “Bucket List?”

We have secured Two Pairs of amaz­ing seats at Fen­way Park for Red Sox games this sum­mer to be auc­tioned off at the Film Fes­ti­val Recep­tion!  These were secured by another one of our gen­er­ous part­ners Nike~Converse. This is just a “Sneak Peek” of what our amaz­ing board and our part­ners have con­tributed for this event!  Watch for fur­ther details and announce­ments to come!

I’ll bet you too, are a “Deserv­ing All-Star!”

We’ve just been noti­fied by our con­tacts at Major League Base­ball that they will be pro­vid­ing us with two tick­ets to the MLB All-Star Game for our Auc­tion dur­ing the Friends of Baseball’s Film Fes­ti­val & Recep­tion March 22nd!

2012 All-Star Game
July 10^th 2012
Kauf­man Sta­dium
Kansas City, Missouri

Fol­low this link for full details and reg­is­tra­tion for the 2012 Friends of Base­ball Film Fes­ti­val:
www.friendsofbaseball.org/filmfestival

Friends of Base­ball Announces Grants!

Our Board of Trustees has been very busy in recent weeks final­iz­ing finan­cial and in-kind grant awards!  Eigh­teen youth base­ball and soft­ball pro­grams will receive in-kind equip­ment grants and two teams will receive finan­cial grant awards rep­re­sent­ing over $20,000 in resource funding. 

Lents Lit­tle League has main­tained a ter­rific pro­gram in South­east Port­land for many years.  The past year, how­ever, brought a com­bi­na­tion of unex­pected chal­lenges and finan­cial respon­si­bil­i­ties.  Our board is pleased to share its sup­port and con­fi­dence in Lent’s Lit­tle League by award­ing a $500 grant that will be used to pur­chase much-needed equipment.

The Cor­val­lis Boys and Girls Club was also hit with unfore­seen chal­lenges involv­ing major struc­tural and safety issues with their fields.  This great orga­ni­za­tion pro­vides schol­ar­ships to over 20% of the fam­i­lies with chil­dren par­tic­i­pat­ing in their base­ball and soft­ball pro­grams.  Our Board has awarded them $2,000 to address field con­cerns in 2012. C.B.&.G Club and FOB will jointly host a Coaches’ Clinic on March 17^th at their facil­ity.  Come and join us! For details visit this Link:

http://www.friendsofbaseball.org/corvallisclinic/

Decem­ber 8, 2011

We recently announced that Bill “Space­man” Lee will head­line our 2012 Film Fes­ti­val on March 22, 2012!  Bill’s sto­ried and some­what eccen­tric career is leg­endary for his years in Major League Base­ball and with the Boston Red Sox.  Please join us for a ben­e­fit screen­ing of a doc­u­men­tary film about Bill’s career enti­tled: “High and Out­side.”  Fol­low­ing the film there will be a recep­tion with Bill shar­ing details about his days in the “Show.”  For addi­tional infor­ma­tion and tick­ets please fol­low this LINK 

For more infor­ma­tion and to reg­is­ter fol­low this LINK

Decem­ber 1, 2011

We are very excited to “Dou­ble the Plea­sure, Dou­ble the Fun” by host­ing two clin­ics in prepa­ra­tion for the 2012 Sea­son.  By pop­u­lar demand, Coach Dave Gasser will con­duct these clin­ics in Port­land on Jan­u­ary 15^th and in Cor­val­lis on March 17^th.  Over the years our clin­ics have brought tremen­dous insight in build­ing the skills for our coaches.  For infor­ma­tion on how you or your league can par­tic­i­pate in one of these pow­er­ful ses­sions, sim­ply fol­low these LINKS:

Port­land Coaches Clinic

http://www.friendsofbaseball.org/pdxclinic/

Cor­val­lis Coaches Clinic

http://www.friendsofbaseball.org/corvallisclinic/

In Early Sep­tem­ber we received a call sug­gest­ing that Nike had some sur­plus gear that was returned from the Col­lege World Series in Omaha.  We began orga­niz­ing it into team sets for some of our High School, JBO and Babe Ruth teams in chal­lenged areas.  Low and behold, we were look­ing at $21,000 in Gear!  Christ­mas may just come a bit early for these under­served teams!  Addi­tion­ally we were noti­fied two weeks ago that the Nike Employee Grant Fund of The Ore­gon Com­mu­nity Foun­da­tion had approved a grant for $15,000 to pro­mote acces­si­bil­ity and equity for all boys and girls expe­ri­enc­ing bar­ri­ers to play­ing base­ball or soft­ball.  Thank you to Nike for their gen­er­ous and ongo­ing sup­port of Friends of Baseball. 

Friends of Base­ball is hon­ored that Bill will be the Fea­tured Speaker for our sec­ond annual Film Fes­ti­val, fundraiser and ben­e­fit screen­ing of this won­der­ful and reveal­ing film his­tory of his engag­ing and col­or­ful career.  Plan now for a Riotously Fun Evening…watch for a reg­is­tra­tion link on this web­site Decem­ber 1st!

Bill “Space­man” Lee in “High & Outside”

Event: FOB Film Fes­ti­val — Bill “Space­man” Lee in  “High & Outside” 

Date: March 22, 2012
Venue: Scot­tish Rite Cen­ter, Port­land OR
Tick­ets Avail­able: Decem­ber 1st
View film trailer here.