This week is an impor­tant week for Friends of Base­ball as we pre­pare for round two and three of our coaches clin­ics in Cor­val­lis and Eugene this week­end! We look for­ward to see­ing new and sea­soned, young and old softball/baseball coaches this week­end! They are going to be two great events — guaranteed!

But besides that, FOB came full cir­cle this week — the gen­e­sis of our orga­ni­za­tion sur­faced itself in recent months. My for­mer high school (Port­land Lutheran), where the father/son base­ball rela­tion­ship really blos­somed for my father and I, came back to us for some help. A few years after I left, the base­ball pro­gram was put on hold for sev­eral years as there just wasn’t enough fund­ing or par­tic­i­pa­tion. And while many sup­port­ers did their best to res­ur­rect it, it just wasn’t in the cards until this season.

For­tu­nately, Friends of Base­ball has stayed in con­tact over the years with admin­is­tra­tors, for­mer coaches and teach­ers at PLS and promised to help when they needed us. It was our honor and plea­sure to have the oppor­tu­nity to part­ner with the other mem­bers of the PLS com­mu­nity to make this dream a real­ity. On top of their per­sis­tence and pas­sion to make this hap­pen, we are also proud of their inge­nu­ity. While they under­stood they may not be able to real­ize this goal alone, PLS part­nered with the Port­land Wal­dorf high school to form an alliance and ulti­mately, their 2013 team. A tip of our hat to both schools and their will­ing­ness to come together for the ben­e­fit of their young ath­letes. This school and its unbe­liev­able staff (some of which are still there today) did so very much for me dur­ing my high school days, and con­tinue do to amaz­ing things for stu­dents and ath­letes today.

Good luck gen­tle­men on a fan­tas­tic inau­gural 2013 sea­son!! –Ben & Keenan

With the amaz­ing suc­cess we enjoyed in Port­land we’re very excited to head down into the val­ley for two more Coach­ing Clin­ics.  Here are a cou­ple of excit­ing fol­low up announcements:

• After your reg­is­tra­tion is com­plete, should one or more of your coaches have a con­flict on one clinic day, they are wel­come to attend the prior or next day’s clinic!  One league reg­is­tra­tion for both Clin­ics; just let us know!
• Pre-registration closes on March 15^th.  Unreg­is­tered coaches will be asked to donate $10 to Friends of Base­ball at the door.
• League Direct, one of our Part­ner Equip­ment Providers, will be award­ing a $250 gift cer­tifi­cate to the league with the great­est num­ber of attend­ing coaches!
• Friends of Base­ball will be dis­trib­ut­ing a lim­ited num­ber of new Nike field­ing gloves and cleats for coaches to dis­trib­ute to under­served kids.

Remem­ber, a sin­gle “Pre-registration” of $50 will admit All of Your League Coaches.  Sim­ply reg­is­ter and email us your atten­dees and their email addresses Prior to March 16^th!

For full details and reg­is­tra­tion, sim­ply fol­low these links:

Cor­val­lis Coaches Clinic March 16^th: http://www.friendsofbaseball.org/corvallisclinic/

Eugene Coaches Clinic March 17^th:

http://www.friendsofbaseball.org/eugeneclinic/

Our 2013 Port­land Coaches’ Clinic was our most suc­cess­ful yet, thanks to your ded­i­ca­tion to teach­ing the love of the game to youth base­ball and soft­ball play­ers of all lev­els. We were thrilled to see so many of you (nearly 300) come out to learn from Oregon’s win­ningest high school base­ball coach, Dave Gasser. And we were pleased to bring Coach Kevin Gun­der­son, for­mer OSU Col­lege World Series pitcher, thanks to Metro Base­ball Acad­emy. A spe­cial thanks also to Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­sity for pro­vid­ing their gym­na­sium for the clinic.  Our follow-up Sur­veys sug­gested a 93% High Sat­is­fac­tion Rating!

We are excited to be assist­ing three pro­grams in this Grant Cycle:

Port­land Lutheran High School is in the process of reac­ti­vat­ing their base­ball pro­gram after being dor­mant for a num­ber of years.  To assist them­selves and another school, they are part­ner­ing with Port­land Wal­dorf School to field a shared team for a year or two until each pro­gram can sup­port its own team!  FOB is thrilled to pur­chase inau­gural sea­son uni­forms for their com­bined team!

Cor­val­lis Boys and Girls Club has been a won­der­ful part­ner for Friends of Base­ball!  In fact, they’ll once again host our Cor­val­lis Coaches’ Clinic in March.  Their ongo­ing pro­grams are offered at rel­a­tively no cost in order to pro­vide as many youth as pos­si­ble access to a secure place to come after school and on week­ends.  This grant will pro­vide schol­ar­ships and fund­ing for equip­ment in expan­sion of their baseball/softball pro­grams.  These lessons in team par­tic­i­pa­tion will assist these youth for a life time …

Just in time for this sea­son, our adi­das cleats are find­ing very worth homes.  May all the teams who received these cleats have Mag­i­cal Sea­sons!  Thanks also to OSAA who Greatly Assisted us in this dis­tri­b­u­tion! Here are just a few of the dozens of notes we have received in recent weeks:

~Mr. Long­cor, 

Thank you for donat­ing the base­ball cleats. We received ours via the OSAA today. With­out gen­er­ous dona­tions made by your orga­ni­za­tion some fam­i­lies would be hard pressed to get high qual­ity gear for their kids. The col­ors fit too…  

Take care and thanks again for your dona­tion.  Buell Gon­za­les, Jr. Brookings-Harbor High School

 ~Dear Keenan, I just want to say thank you very much for the cleats that we were donated.   My pro­gram has a lot of severe socioe­co­nomic dis­ad­van­tages, and these cleats went a long way toward help­ing us field a team.  I can­not thank you enough for your gen­eros­ity.  Thank you, Jer­imy Kel­ley, Rainier Baseball

~Dear Keenan, I wanted to extend a big heart­felt thank you from the stu­dents of Sis­ters High School on the dona­tion of base­ball cleats to our stu­dents in need.   Many of our student’s fam­i­lies strug­gle to make ends meet, and this type of gift helps bring many of them the oppor­tu­nity to par­tic­i­pate in our co-curricular activ­i­ties.      Thank you so much. Respect­fully, Tim Roth Sis­ters School District

Read More here and here, to find out the other pro­grams in Ore­gon and beyond where these cleats have found a home.

Octo­ber 30, 2012

Friends of Base­ball is expand­ing its reach in 2013 with the announce­ment of three Youth Base­ball and Soft­ball Coaches Clin­ics in the New Year! With the won­der­ful suc­cess and turnout for this year’s clin­ics in Port­land and Cor­val­lis we are headed on down the road for a third clinic in 2013!  Mark your cal­en­dars for secur­ing all of your leagues coaches to attend on the fol­low­ing dates:

Port­land Clinic Jan­u­ary 5^th 2013 Con­cor­dia, Uni­ver­sity (1:00 to 5:00pm)
Cor­val­lis Clinic March 16^th 2013, Cor­val­lis Boys and Girls Club (1:00 to 5:00pm)
Eugene Clinic March 17^th 2013, PK Park (1:00 to 5:00pm)

By very pop­u­lar demand we have secured Coach Gasser with a brand new pro­gram and pre­sen­ta­tion for the new season.

Kevin Gun­der­son OSU Cham­pi­onship Pitcher will assist coach with his Pitch­ing Pre­sen­ta­tion for the Port­land Clinic this year!

Pre­reg­is­tra­tion begins Novem­ber 1, 2012 for each of these clin­ics.  Reg­is­ter early for the Port­land Clinic and Coaches will be receiv­ing Free Passes to the adi­das com­pany store in Portland!

 “There is no greater gift your leagues can pro­vide our kids than for a very pos­i­tive coach­ing expe­ri­ence for your play­ers!”

For Full Details and Pre­reg­is­tra­tion Please Fol­low the Links Below:

Port­land Coaches Clinic LINK (Sat­ur­day Jan­u­ary 5^th, 2013)

Cor­val­lis Coaches Clinic LINK (Sat­ur­day March 16^th, 2013)

Eugene Coaches Clinic LINK (Sun­day March 17^h, 2013)

These clin­ics are highly sub­si­dized by Friends of Base­ball to insure full par­tic­i­pa­tion for all leagues! Come join this event, we guar­an­tee a mean­ing­ful session!

NOTE! Pre­reg­is­tra­tion will be only han­dled online, please fol­low links above.

At the com­ple­tion of a recent Board Retreat our board voted Unan­i­mously to Ful­fill our Six Year Dream and Vision to pro­vide sup­port and grant fund­ing to youth Base­ball and Soft­ball orga­ni­za­tions Through­out Ore­gon, State-Wide and into Clark County, Wash­ing­ton!  Until now our bound­aries and fund­ing did not pro­vide for South­ern and East­ern Ore­gon or SW Wash­ing­ton. This would not have been pos­si­ble with­out a gen­er­ous grant from the Nike Employee Grant Fund and Nike’s ongo­ing sup­port; Thanks Nike! Please help us share this infor­ma­tion far and wide through­out our region!

Upon review by our Board of Trustees we are thrilled to announce place­ment of all 11,000 Pairs of cleats Gen­er­ously donated by adi­das.  Our pri­or­ity from day one was to find orga­ni­za­tions who demon­strated the need and logis­ti­cal moti­va­tion to dis­trib­ute these to youth play­ers who likely have never owned their very own NEW pair . . .

We have des­ig­nated 13 Hubs rep­re­sent­ing 15 youth orga­ni­za­tions nation­ally that will dis­trib­ute this amaz­ing bounty; includ­ing 3,000 pair to remain in Ore­gon!  Our final Thanks Go to Many, Many Indi­vid­u­als and Orga­ni­za­tions for your Devo­tion in bring­ing these cleats to their new homes; thanks adi­das!  These cleats will be bring­ing a $1Million in smiles to under­served youth nationally …

For a full list of Hub Part­ner­ships fol­low this Link

Our Goal in our Cleat Dis­tri­b­u­tion pro­gram has been to cre­ate a “Model” for sim­i­lar dis­tri­b­u­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties in the future with our many man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ners for base­ball and all types of youth sports-related gear that needs and deserves a wor­thy home.

Our board has cre­ated a new Sub­sidiary within FOB in order to work closely with 100’s of Youth Orga­ni­za­tions in Ore­gon and Nation­ally with whom we have devel­oped rela­tion­ships and can now assist along with our Part­ner Providers!  We are now con­fi­dent we can man­age these efforts in a timely and highly effec­tive man­ner.  These dis­tri­b­u­tion efforts will assist in pro­vid­ing resources and fund­ing for our core mis­sion at Friends of Baseball.

With this, we are hon­ored to intro­duce to you this new Sub­sidiary: “One Ball Field”

We often hear just weeks before the sea­son is set to begin about teams fac­ing com­pelling need for that year’s pro­gram.  To be hon­est, this lim­its our abil­ity to help; it gen­er­ally takes any­where from 30 to 60 days for our board to coor­di­nate fund­ing and work with our Part­ner Providers to ful­fill the many requests for assis­tance we receive.  Now is the time to eval­u­ate 2012 with 2013 in mind, deter­min­ing where your needs and chal­lenges will fall in the com­ing year.  We have sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties to help in many, many ways if indeed we are con­tacted this time of year!  Take stock and begin your plan­ning now.  We are here to help with the many finan­cial, field safety and schol­ar­ship chal­lenges your orga­ni­za­tions may be facing …