Star-studded clinic opens door for Newtown baseball

There were big smiles and tiny smiles, baseballs flying through the air, kids yelling and laughing and lessons being learned.

It was, at its most basic level, a baseball clinic. To the children of Newtown, it will hopefully come to mean so much more.

At Newtown Estates Park on Jan. 12, former Baltimore Orioles All-Star second baseman Brian Roberts teamed with a handful of groups, including Trenton Davis, the president of the North Sarasota Baseball League; Jeff Howard and the Florida International Baseball Academy; and representatives from the Booker High baseball program, to host the Brian Roberts Youth Baseball Clinic for kids 5-12. It featured a standard set-up: rotations between pitching, base-running, pop fly, grounder, short toss, Wiffle ball and T-ball stations, then lunch for the kids. The event lasted just over two hours.

That is great on its own, but there are a few important things to understand. The first: Newtown has no baseball culture these days. Or at least not a consistent one. Leagues have popped up and faded away. Even Davis’ North Sarasota league is really just a single entity, the Newtown Blaze, which has a 12U and 10U team. The Blaze, formerly known as AMP, which Davis said has played through Cal Ripken Sarasota and Sarasota Little League (at Twin Lakes Park) the past two seasons, will go independent this season.

“We hope to start a ‘farm system’ with the little kids, and then hopefully have our own self-sustaining league eventually,” Davis said. “As best we can tell, it has been close to 20 years (since there was a consistent Newtown league). At the very least, baseball has not been prevalent in Newtown since then.”

What better way, then, for kids in Newtown to get excited about the game again then having pro players teach it to them? Yes, the second thing you need to know about the Roberts clinic is that it was star-studded. Roberts was there, of course, but so were former Tampa Bay Rays ace pitcher Chris Archer, now with the Pittsburgh Pirates, current Colorado Rockies infielder and Sarasota High grad Ian Desmond, Rays pitching coach and Riverview High grad Kyle Snyder, Los Angeles Angels reliever Jim Johnson, Chicago White Sox pitcher Miguel Gonzalez and former Oriole Tim Raines Jr, among others.

There were approximately 130 kids signed up and even more arrived as walk-ups. Desmond told them he’s from here and listed the organizations he was a part of (like Sarasota Redskins youth football) to help them see themselves in him. He then reminded them that Sarasota High is one of the biggest producers of MLB talent in the country, and said he wants Newtown to be a part of the city’s rich baseball culture.

“I grew up playing baseball at 12th Street Park,” Desmond said. “A lot of my greatest memories came from over there. To be here and have a chance to help create those memories for these kids is a great opportunity. Back when I was a kid, Little Leagues were still the big thing. Now there’s travel ball and AAU ball that are much more prominent. But I have four kids myself, and I hope to raise them up in Little League. It has a lot of value in learning to work with kids of all different levels and certain challenges that come up in life. So I hope these kids can use this (clinic) as a springboard into something much greater.”

Desmond said he was 12 when former MLB catcher (and Sailors grad) Roger Miller held a clinic of his own at 12th Street, with some other pros in attendance. That experience was imprinted into his mind, Desmond said. 

No shade to Desmond, but the most popular person at the clinic was Archer, the 30-year-old two-time All-Star who finished fifth in Cy Young voting with the Rays in 2015. If kids in Sarasota know baseball, they know Archer. Archer is not from the area, but was contacted by Roberts though mutual acquaintances and will be in Bradenton next month for Pirates spring training.

During the clinic, Archer manned the pitching station with Snyder, his former pitching coach. At one point, after explaining to a group how to throw a breaking ball (but advising the kids not to try it themselves until they are older), someone asked if Archer could throw one himself.

“Yeah, I can,” Archer said, before throwing Snyder a goofy look. “It’s useable! It’s not ‘good,’ but it is useable. He (Snyder) did not like me to use it, though.”

Snyder just laughed.

“When I was a kid, I wish I could have gone to a clinic like this to get professional instruction,” Archer said. “Any time I can (help), I am down. It is important for kids to open their minds to baseball as a sport, baseball as a possibility. I want every kid to get involved, male and female.

“I tell them to just have fun. It is a game. We can get caught up in the competition and it being our job as pros, but the most important thing is to always have fun.”

Roberts, the man with his name on the event, was too busy making sure everything ran smoothly to run a station of his own. But run smoothly it did, and when the kids had cleared the fields at lunchtime, Roberts, who works with the Orioles as a community ambassador, reflected.

“I love getting new kids playing baseball,” Roberts said. I think we have done a poor job, to an extent, with baseball in inner cities in general. (There are) parts of cities that just don’t get to play enough. That’s kind of where this idea stemmed from. I guess you would have to ask everybody else how it went, but I think the kids had fun. At this age, you just want to get them out here, try and learn a little something about the game, but mostly realize that baseball is fun.”

It worked. 5-year-old Jamille Brown had one of those big smiles I mentioned up top after the event. He nodded when asked if he had fun, which is as good an endorsement as any. 12-year-old Lauriel "Scoota" Trotman, who attended the clinic but played one year of baseball on Davis' team, said he advised all the kids new to the game to never quit, because baseball is not an easy sport. Trotman himself plans on continuing in the game as long as he can, because he loves hitting long home runs. 

After the clinic, Roberts and his helpers told the participants that, if interested in playing more baseball, they could have their parents and guardians sign up for information on any future leagues or happenings in Newtown. As of Jan. 15, Roberts said, the names of people interested were still being counted. But it was enough for Roberts to say he hopes to get “several T-ball teams up and running.” Roberts also said he would love to make the clinic an annual event. 

I started in T-ball and played the game for a long time. I don’t play anymore, but I still love the game. What Archer said, about kids needing to see baseball as an possibility, has stuck with me. If even a handful of kids in Newtown find success in the game, enough success to earn a college scholarship or even play professionally, as many of their city neighbors have done, then this whole endeavor will have been worth it.

None of that can happen without a chance to play. There’s a long way to go, but I hope this is the beginning of their chance. With Roberts and other community leaders willing to help, Newtown’s baseball prospects seem higher than ever.