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/

Friends of Baseball’s Mis­sion is to offer Oregon’s eco­nom­i­cally and geo­graph­i­cally chal­lenged chil­dren enhanced oppor­tu­ni­ties for social inter­ac­tion, aca­d­e­mic suc­cess and phys­i­cal and men­tal well-being through par­tic­i­pa­tion in youth base­ball and soft­ball team programs.

Friends of Base­ball was founded in 2005 by a father, son and Board of Trustees dri­ven by their pas­sion to give back to the com­mu­nity of youth base­ball and soft­ball that they love. Friends of Base­ball and their part­ner providers offer league-sustaining goods, ser­vices and in-kind sup­port to youth orga­ni­za­tions that exhibit com­pelling need. Youth base­ball and soft­ball pro­grams face many ongo­ing chal­lenges includ­ing loss of play­ing venues, dimin­ished com­mu­nity resources and increased respon­si­bil­ity for field prepa­ra­tion to sim­ply play “their game.” To meet these grow­ing needs, Friends of Base­ball has received des­ig­na­tion as a 501©(3) non­profit in order to bet­ter part­ner with Fam­ily and Cor­po­rate Foun­da­tions and enhance our finan­cial resources for those teams and regions cur­rently under­served.  (more…)

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.

FOB has ded­i­cated itself from year one to enhanc­ing the qual­ity of coach­ing in our region, so we decided that it’s time to dou­ble up in 2012.  We ask that you mark your cal­en­dars for our Jan­u­ary 15th Port­land Clinic with N.W. Star Acad­emy and March 17th clinic with Cor­val­lis Boys and Girls Club in Cor­val­lis!  We’re thrilled to bring back Coach Dave Gasser  with a brand new pro­gram for not just one but for both of these events!  Coach nearly filled our audi­to­rium for the 2011 clinic, so we’re mak­ing arrange­ments to expand seat­ing in 2012! 

2011 NW Star/FOB Coaches Clinic

Reg­is­tra­tion will open Decem­ber 1st.  To cover inci­den­tals we ask for $50 per league, regard­less of the num­ber of affil­i­ate coaches! Yes, last year we had a league send nearly 30 coaches for a sin­gle fee! We also have a num­ber of full schol­ar­ships avail­able if there are leagues or indi­vid­u­als who may not oth­er­wise be able to attend. Sin­gle tick­ets will also be made avail­able.  Mean­while, begin spread­ing the word.  Coach Gasser is rec­og­nized by many to be hands down one of the best teach­ing Coaches in Ore­gon! All pro­ceeds from our Clinic in Cor­val­lis will be directed to the Cor­val­lis Boys and Girls Club Base­ball Cap­i­tal Cam­paign. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion and reg­is­tra­tion details please con­tact: Info@Friendsofbaseball.org  We are hop­ing for a full house at both venues.  Watch for reg­is­tra­tion link on this web­site Decem­ber 1st!  

It has just been announced that our Part­ner Pacific­Source Insur­ance and FOB will be con­duct­ing a team equip­ment drive for new and like new equip­ment in sup­port of our under­served Ore­gon Play­ers. Come join us on May 22nd at Goss Sta­dium in Cor­val­lis for the Ore­gon State Beavers game against USC. Con­tain­ers will be avail­able to col­lect these con­tri­bu­tions. Thank you in advance to our friends Pacific­Source and to all of you for par­tic­i­pat­ing! Come say Hi … Go Beavs’

For fur­ther details please fol­low this Link:http://www.pacificsource.com/friendsofbaseball/

With spring in the air FOB feels the loss of Pro­fes­sional Base­ball in Port­land this sea­son. To view this Ore­gon­ian arti­cle sim­ply fol­low this Link:

http://www.oregonlive.com/mlb/index.ssf/2011/04/april_brings_nostalgic_feeling.html

This past fall the Port­land Beavers hon­ored us by nam­ing Friends of Base­ball as interim cus­to­dian of PGE Park’s home plate. Thanks to a gen­er­ous dona­tion we have now com­pleted a museum qual­ity trav­el­ing exhibit. In recent weeks we have begun dis­play­ing this sig­nif­i­cant piece of Ore­gon Base­ball his­tory in the hopes it will help sus­tain the dream of bring­ing Pro­fes­sional Base­ball back to Port­land and restore the oppor­tu­nity for future gen­er­a­tions of fam­ily mem­o­ries. We will be announc­ing its loca­tion and sched­ule on an ongo­ing basis. (more…)