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- 2012: Dates to Remember
- Brandon's Bench -
- 2012 Tryouts - 2012
Registration - 2011 Awards Night Recap
- Scholarships -
-
Dugout Fences at COA - Volunteer Info - Jets & Hornets Team Up
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- The Babe's Legend Endures - Rain/Field
Conditions - Babe Ruth Volunteers
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- A Word About Travel Teams - COA dugout clean-up -
 2012 -
'Inside pitch' newsletter...
here.
2012 -
IMPORTANT
DATES
Dedication
Ceremony for Brandon Sorensen Memorial Bench at Corica Golf Complex
(Joint donation by
Alameda Babe Ruth & Alameda Little League)
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Brandon's family
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Brandon's plaque
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2012
- PLAYER REGISTRATION (ages 13-15):
(based on player's age as
of 4/30/12)
-
Registration
(1 option remaining):
IN PERSON: Print
out this Medical Release/Registration form
and bring it with you along with your check (details
below)
to the final 13-15 Evaluation date on Saturday,
January 14 (details below).
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REGISTRATION
NIGHT #1 - Completed
Monday, December 12, 2011, from 7-8:30
at the multi-purpose room at Lum
Elementary School
(corner of Otis and Sandcreek Way; near Grand).
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REGISTRATION
NIGHT #2 - Completed
Wednesday, December 14, 2011, from 7-8:30
at the
Alameda
Boys & Girls Club.
-
Mailers:
Registration mailers to be sent out in mid-November (also
be available for download from this site).
IMPORTANT: If you are unable to attend our Registration
Night or would simply prefer to mail in your information, you can print
out a registration form
(Word).
You must return the registration paperwork to us (Registration/Emergency
Release form) with your check (made out to "Alameda Babe
Ruth") via mail, at PO Box 1096, Alameda CA 94501 ASAP.
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Fee(s):
Based on our new organizational structure, registrations fees will be
tiered, and based on whether a player will be participating at the
local Babe Ruth level or is on one of the traveling teams.
Additionally,
traveling team fees vary depending on age-group, which in turn is
based on the number of games played, as well projected travel and
league-participation fees.
-
For
ages 13-15, all
players need to pay $200 at the time of registration. After
tryouts and team selection: Those to play on travelling teams will
need to pay an additional $300 ($500 total). Those to play on
local Babe Ruth teams, have no additional fees (i.e., $200 total).
- For 17 and Under Travel
Team(s), all players
need to pay $650 at the time of registration.
- For 18 and Under Travel
Team(s), all players
need to pay $750 at the time of registration.
- For 19-21-yr Old Travel
Team(s), all players
need to pay $500 at the time of registration.
League Fee
Comparisons: Alameda
Babe Ruth does everything it can to keep registration fees as low as
possible. In fact, this is the first year we’ve had to raise our
fees in over a decade. And even now, if you check other leagues,
Alameda Babe Ruth is by far the lowest in the region and hundreds of
dollars less when compared to other travel teams.
2012
- PLAYER
EVALUATIONS
(Try Outs)
--
Players must attend a tryout in order to be selected to a team
--
If you have any questions, contact the League Vice President, Bill Dal Porto (billdalporto@comcast.net.)
NOTE:
All 13-15 year old players who register, pay fees and attend evaluations
are assured of being drafted to a team. Players who were on a roster of
a National League team in 2011 DO
need to attend evaluations this year as the league structure has
changed.
2011
AWARDS NIGHT RECAP
(Sun, 6/26)
PHOTOS
(Sam Huie): Scholarship
Winners; Sportsmanship
Winners
-
Award
History
- 2011 American League Team Sportsmen:
- Cubs - Dino Glavovic
- Giants - Daniel Ratto
- Indians - Aaron Hoff
- 2011 "Whitey Wootten"
American League Sportsman of the Year - Daniel Ratto
- 2011 National League Team Sportsmen:
- A's - Jackson Tracy
- Mets - Joe Riley
- Pirates - Kevin Kinney
- Tigers - Fischer Davis
- 2011 "Ty French" National
League Sportsmen - Fischer Davis and Joe Riley
- 2011 "Georgia Swain" Team
Sportsmanship Award - National Metal Fabricator Mets (Manager Clare Kruse)
- 2011 Volunteer of the Year - Erik
Schuler
- 2011 Scholarship Award Winners: Danny
Andrada, Tyler Cobb, Spenser Linney, Eli Nemzer, Garrett Rich, Richard
Roque, John Ruck, Joe Serventi, Ben Torres
- 2011 Special Volunteer Recognition:
- Bret Bustos (5 years)
- Adam Garfinkle (5 years)
- Bill Garvine (5 years)
- Joe Sherratt (6 years)
- Erik Schuler (6 years)
- Chas Patterson (9 years)
- Jim Grigg (9 years)
- Geoff Kline (14 years)
- Chuck Moseley (14-15 off
& on for past 22 years)
- Margaret Schullstrom (15
years)
- Gary Longoria (18 years)
- Clare Kruse (28 years)
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And not mentioned during the ceremony, but our League President, Bill
Dal Porto, has been volunteering with Alameda Babe Ruth
continuously for... 35 years.
- 2011 All-Star Rosters:
a
word about Travel teams
Message from the President
April 6, 2009
TRAVEL WITH BABE RUTH LEAGUE, INC.
Babe Ruth League, Inc. is an
organization that places youth first. Youth baseball and softball are
meant to be fun, with tournament competition being secondary. Allowing
every child the opportunity to play and providing as equal playing
time as possible for younger athletes is the ultimate objective. It is
important that at a young age, coaches and parents begin to teach the
principles of sportsmanship, effort, teamwork and self discipline. FUN
is what will keep your child in the game and eager to learn!
We are always concerned about the
philosophies of travel teams and what they promote. They represent a
demanding schedule, total exclusivity and high expense for a child to
participate. Travel teams attempt to recruit the more talented
players. There are recruiting problems as players often switch teams.
And if a player does not keep on playing up to par, he will most
likely be dropped from the team or see less playing time and forced to
find another.
Many communities are playing travel
ball today because people believe it is a higher level of competition.
However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Local league
oriented programs such as Babe Ruth League, Inc. offer many
opportunities for players to develop their skills, and to take their
game to the next level.
Babe Ruth League, Inc.’s goal is to
provide the best playing experience for every division in our program.
The main reason kids play baseball and softball is to have FUN!
Keeping the game FUN for all while at the same time teaching the basic
skills is what we will always strive to accomplish.
The more talented players have the
opportunity to experience an exciting and challenging post-season
tournament trail, which begins at the District level and culminates at
nine World Series. There is NO participation fee to play in official
Babe Ruth tournament trail tournaments. Players are also able to
participate in special invitational tournaments and interlocking
schedules with neighboring leagues.
Babe Ruth League, Inc. was proud to
take yet another step to ensure a banner experience for our players by
participating in the inaugural National Youth Baseball Championships
Tournament for the 12-and-under and 10-and-under divisions in 2008.
This championship involved World Series champions from community-based
programs such as Babe Ruth League and World Series champions from
leading travel programs competing to be crowned the national champion
in each division. One of our teams actually made it to the
championship game. We look forward to participating in this tournament
again in the future.
As you can see, the talent is not
that much different among players who participate in community-based
programs and players who participate in travel programs. And you
cannot assume that if you child plays travel ball this will guarantee
him/her a position on a high school team, a college scholarship or an
easy ticket to the pros. For whatever reason, it is a rare person who
gets to play professional sports – statistics state only one in
13,000 will ever receive a paycheck from a professional team.
According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA),
fewer than 2% of high school athletes will ever receive a collegiate
scholarship.
Contrary to the beliefs of many,
early success in sports is not consistently correlated with success in
later years. At a young age, the winning percentage should not be
based on any measure of wins and losses, but rather on how much fun
the children have and how many want to play again the next season. It
should be about having fun and creating life-time friendships and
memories. It should be about total community involvement and neighbor
togetherness. What are we teaching our kids if we expect them to win
at all costs? Doesn’t this make them feel that they must win for us,
as parents, to be proud of them? Does it mean that doing your best and
having fun does not make them a champion, both on and off the field?
Of course not!! At least not in Babe Ruth League, Inc.
While youth baseball and softball can
be one of the most inexpensive sports to participate in, they can come
with a high price tag. It all depends on you and what you expect from
your child’s experience.
Do you want your child to develop
lasting friendships and learn such valuable life lessons as
self-discipline, sportsmanship, teamwork, learning from mistakes,
winning humbly and handling defeat gracefully, just to name a few (The
skill to handle failure and overcome it can last a lifetime while
youth baseball and softball careers only last a short while.) Do you
want a structured environment where your kids can develop their
skills? Do you want your kids to be on set rosters where you know they
will be afforded playing time and not just sit the bench? Do you want
your kids to be surrounded by “teachers” in an outdoor classroom
who are committed to them? Do you want your kid to participate in a
program where the #1 goal is to help them grow into successful and
productive adults? Then having your family join the Babe Ruth Family
is the route you want to take.
Steven M. Tellefsen
President/CEO
Babe Ruth League
alameda
Babe
Ruth scholarships
Alameda
Babe
Ruth has awarded over $40,000 in College Scholarships since 1995.
Any graduating high
school senior who has played at least two years in
our program and will be attending a community, four-year college or
university is eligible to apply for a scholarship. Applications
are due each year around April. (2011 applications are due by 4/8/11.)
Current
Application Form
The Dal
Porto family funds one of the scholarships in honor of Peter &
Margaret Dal Porto. The remaining scholarships come from umpires
who volunteer their time instead of getting paid. 2011 Scholarships
The Babe Ruth
Scholarship Committee (Geoff Kline, Bill Garvine, Clare
Kruse and Bill Dal Porto) have awarded $500 college scholarships to the
following high school seniors:
Congratulations
and Best Wishes
to all our 2011 Babe Ruth Scholarship Recipients in their
ongoing educational and athletic pursuits!
And
a special thanks to all of our volunteer umpires
who have made these awards possible.
Mark
Clement, George Phillips, Dennis DiFabio, Geoff Kline, Ron Matthews, Darrell Holt, Eric
Litzky,
David Hoff, Steve Bail and Bill Dal Porto
REMINDER:
Rain / Field
Conditions
After
a rain, always call the ARPD Field Hotline to find out whether fields
are playable or closed.
The
number is:
747-
7540
NEVER
go onto fields that have been closed by ARPD.
Thank you for your cooperation.
BABE RUTH VOLUNTEERS
In
order to keep our kids playing baseball at a quality level, it takes a
LOT of volunteer effort. We need everyone to try to help
out wherever they can, whether that's as a Board Member, Manager,
Coach, Umpire, Publicity Person, Grounds Keeper, Picture Day
Coordinator or Family BBQ volunteer, we welcome and encourage every
parent to participate. If
you would like to volunteer, just notify any Board member or your
team's manager. Safety
It is the league's policy that ALL volunteers working with our
players be "vetted"; this includes all umpires, coaches,
managers, Board Members, grounds keepers, score keepers, as well as
anyone else that works directly with the players and/or helps on the
field during games & practices. The
vetting procedure involves completing and then submitting a Volunteer
Application together with a copy of your Driver's License.
The League's Director of Legal Affairs then simply runs a routine
check of each volunteer through the Alameda Police Department to
confirm that there is nothing that would prevent that individual from
working with our kids. The
procedure is routine, and is being practiced by more and more youth
organizations as a simple precaution and an unfortunate sign of the
times.
The
vetting procedure will be kept in the strictest confidence and be
assured that minor infractions that have no bearing on your ability
to work with our players will have no impact on the approval of your
application.
Again,
to be able to work as a volunteer with Alameda Babe Ruth,
you need to:
-
Print
out & complete a Volunteer
Application
-
Make
a copy of your Driver's License
-
Submit
both the Application and copy of Driver's License directly to the League General Manager for processing,
or simply turn in to your Team Manager, who then is responsible
for passing along the paperwork to the General
Manager.
Thank
you for your cooperation & understanding,
and thank you for volunteering to help our young athletes.
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REMINDER:
always CLEAN-UP DUGOUTS AFTER GAMES
It
is each team's responsibility to ensure that the dugouts are clean after
every game - especially when we play at the College of
Alameda.
Babe Ruth will be charged if the field maintenance person has to
spend extra time cleaning the dugouts, so please remember to remove all
your trash, seed shells, etc. from the dugouts before you
leave.
There SHOULD be
brooms in each dugout.
Thank you.
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Arch-rivals
Merge Forces in Summer
By Jake Leonard
Oakland Tribune
7/18/2007
BACK: Coach Tim Marr, Mike Senter
(E), Charlie Targett (E), Zack Braband (SJ), Mark Severy (EC), Anthony
Woodd (A),
Zach Boyd (E), Jeff Croft (A), Devin Grigg (A), Tommy Adkins (E), Will
Sherratt (A), Coach Mike Ballerini
MIDDLE: Paul Wada (A), Casey O'Reilly (A), Jim Klien (CP), John
Dunn (A), Coach Rich Sherratt, Todd Surdez (N)
VOGUEING: Casey Henneman (E)
HAYWARD — A foul ball dropped from
the sky, heading straight for a pair of bench-warming players, both only
half paying attention.
Realizing their dangerous positioning,
Encinal High's Casey Henneman and Alameda's Casey O'Reilly fumbled into
each other, in turn making bids to catch the popup and to dodge it.
Plunk. Laughter all around.
The ball landed harmlessly between
them, becoming a quick and friendly bickering point, as the pair heckled
each other and gave fraternal shoulder-checks and fist jabs of blame.
It's a bizarre sight. Alameda and
Encinal: not at each other's throats, not spouting trash-talk, not even
seeming to hate each other.
"Must be summer," called a
voice from the stands.
From early February until late June,
Encinal and Alameda baseball players are the bitterest of rivals: ACCAL
and inter-Alameda Island arch-foes. But once the high-school season
ends, there's a 180-degree attitude adjustment, as those same players
morph into the eagerest of teammates.
"People say Encinal and Alameda
baseball players are so different," Alameda alum Devin Grigg said.
"Really, we've all known each other since Little League. We come
together pretty well when we have the chance."
The stage for that easiest of uneasy
alliances on Tuesday evening was Chabot College, where the Alameda
Merchants — a Babe Ruth Senior League all-star team made up of players
from ages 16 to 18, consisting almost exclusively of players from
Encinal and Alameda — faced the Castro Valley Thunder Sox in the state
tournament.
Smiles weren't wide throughout the
evening on the Alameda bench, as the Merchants suffered a 7-0 loss to
the 2002-, 2004- and 2006-champion Thunder Sox, who were led by a
nine-strikeout performance from Arroyo's Alex Jack.
But, after winning its first two games
of the double-elimination tournament by a combined 18-9, Alameda remains
alive, and will send ace Zach Boyd out against Mountain View today at
5:30 p.m, with a championship rematch against Castro Valley on the line.
"We had a bad game today,"
head coach Tim Marr said. "As good as we were on Sunday (beating
Santa Rosa 8-7), we were that bad today. These kids have been champions
all year, though. We'll rebound."
Many members from Alameda's 2000
11-year old championship team, and Alameda High's 2006 NCS championship
team are on the roster.
Of the six hits collected by the
Merchants against Castro Valley, fittingly, three came from Encinal (two
for Boyd and one for Mike Senter), and three came from Alameda High (two
for alum Jeff Croft, now at Laney College, and one for Paul Wada).
dugout fences @ the college !!!
In a cooperative effort, Alameda Babe
Ruth and Alameda Little League pooled resources to finally have safety
fences installed in front of the dugouts out at the College of Alameda
baseball field. The fences were part of the facility's original
design, but were dropped as funding dried up during construction.
The new fences not only will protect
the players in the dugouts, but also the fielders who risk tumbling into
the cement dugouts chasing after fly balls.
Records
May Fall, but the Babe Endures
By
Ron Kroichick
SF Chronicle
May 2006
By
October 1934, after his final full season in the major leagues, Babe
Ruth's fame stretched around the globe. He was among several all-star
players, from Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx to Lefty Gomez and Charlie
Gehringer, who visited Japan on a goodwill baseball tour.
Julia
Ruth Stevens, the Babe's teenage daughter, joined her parents on the
journey -- it was her high school graduation present. Their boat docked,
and they hopped in cars, but the cars could barely move amid the crush of
Japanese fans gathered to greet Ruth.
"Oh,
my goodness alive, the people in Japan absolutely mobbed Daddy,"
Stevens said recently in a telephone interview. "They kept saying,
'Baby Ruth! Baby Ruth!' "
It
seems clear that Barry Bonds will soon surpass Ruth's magical milestone of
714 career home runs, the major-league record from 1935 to 1974 and now
No. 2 behind Hank Aaron's 755. Just as clearly, Bonds will make virtually
no dent in Ruth's everlasting legend.
More
than 70 years after his last game and nearly 60 years after his death,
Ruth remains uniquely powerful. A Google search for "Babe Ruth"
results in almost 8 million hits. His 1919 contract was auctioned off at
Sotheby's last year for $996,000. The adjective "Ruthian," to
describe any larger-than-life person or feat, has become an accepted part
of the vocabulary.
Or
consider Babe Ruth League Inc., a staple of youth baseball. Today, nearly
900,000 players compete in more than 7,300 leagues around the world; among
the alumni is one Barry Bonds, who played in the San Mateo league while
growing up on the Peninsula.
Stevens
was 17 when she went to Japan. She's 88 now and still awash in memories of
her long-departed father, an epic figure in U.S. sports history.
"It
seems like it doesn't make any difference where you go: If you say the
name Babe Ruth, people know who he is," Stevens said from Chicago,
where she participated in a ceremony at Wrigley Field last week honoring
Ruth's called-shot home run. "I never dreamed his name would be as
big today, in many ways bigger, than when he was alive."
Said
Linda Tosetti, Ruth's granddaughter through another daughter, Dorothy:
"The name is magic, as my mom used to say."
That
might not have happened had Ruth not insisted on becoming an everyday
hitter. He had offered early signs of his talent by winning 23 games in
1916, and another 24 in 1917, as a young pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.
But he soared into another realm in the '20s after the Red Sox infamously
sold him to the New York Yankees and Ruth began smacking home runs at,
well, a Ruthian rate.
He
hit 29 homers for Boston in 1919 while still starting 15 games on the
mound. After the season, Ruth, wanting to concentrate on hitting, demanded
that owner Harry Frazee double his salary to $20,000. Frazee instead sold
Ruth to the Yankees, calling him selfish and inconsiderate.
Frazee
also acknowledged that he was the greatest hitter the game had ever seen,
as Ruth quickly proved by swatting 54 homers in 1920, his first season
with the Yankees, and 59 more in 1921. Those were unfathomable numbers at
the time: Del Pratt led the Red Sox with five homers in '21.
The
Yankees shared the Polo Grounds with the New York Giants at the time of
Ruth's arrival, but fan interest skyrocketed because of his unprecedented
power display. The rush of support prompted the club to build Yankee
Stadium, which opened in 1923 and was aptly dubbed the House that Ruth
Built.
Those
are the roots of his legend, but the numbers still merit mention. Ruth led
the American League in home runs, or shared the lead, 12 times; five
times, his total was more than double that of the National League leader.
His 54 in 1920 dwarfed the 15 by Philadelphia's Cy Williams, and his 59
the next year far exceeded the 23 by George Kelly of the Giants.
Ruth
was the first player to hit 30 homers in a season, then the first to hit
40, then 50, then 60 (in 1927). That total stood as the single-season
record for 34 years, nearly as long as 714 lasted as the career record (39
years).
"His
baseball exploits were so extraordinary, so above and beyond what any
player had done," said Mike Gibbons, executive director of the Babe
Ruth Museum in Baltimore, the slugger's birthplace. "He broke all
kinds of records as both a hitter and pitcher. I think it just made a
nation's worth of fans and media go, 'Holy cow!' "
Ruth
also changed baseball into a power game. That he launched his home runs in
New York enhanced his popularity, as did his team's success: Ruth and
Gehrig helped the Yankees start an incomparable dynasty, leading them to
the first four of their 26 World Series championships.
As
Gibbons pointed out, Ruth blossomed into a star in the Roaring Twenties, a
decade in which America strutted forward after World War I. His big,
brash, fun-loving, nightlife-seeking personality played well in New York
and across the land.
"If
ever there was a time made for somebody like Babe, it was the Roaring
Twenties," said Tom Stevens, Julia's son and Ruth's grandson.
"He was a roaring 20. He had the personality to match."
Tom
Stevens was born in 1952, four years after Ruth died, but he quickly
learned about his grandfather's fame. In the late 1950s, Edward R. Murrow
took his network television show to the Riverside Drive apartment of
Claire Ruth -- Babe's widow and Tom's grandmother -- to shoot an episode.
Stevens mostly recalls the enormous cameras and the cords slithering all
over the place.
In
the '60s, young Tom occasionally accompanied his grandmother to Yankee
Stadium to watch games. Even then, autograph seekers lined up for Claire's
signature to seize any connection to the Babe. Stevens and his grandmother
were treated like royalty.
Ruth
cemented his legacy in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series
against the Cubs. He supposedly pointed to the center-field bleachers and
then, on Charlie Root's next pitch, crushed one of the longest homers ever
hit at Wrigley Field. Ruth initially downplayed the incident, but he soon
came to say he indeed had called his shot, perhaps knowing it would
embellish his legend.
Ruth's
fame endures today. Gibbons tells of talking to a sportswriter friend who
covered the Olympics in Athens in 2004. The Greeks didn't know much about
baseball, his friend recounted, but when asked if they knew any baseball
players, they offered one name: Babe Ruth.
Every
year, similarly, Gibbons asks students in his writing class at the
University of Baltimore if they know about Babe Ruth -- and all do. He
also asks if the students have heard of Orioles legend Brooks Robinson --
as the years pass, only a few raise their hands.
"So
why is it that Babe Ruth keeps on trucking?" Gibbons said. "I
think it's because he's now fully entrenched in our culture as a pop icon
-- like Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Abe Lincoln. There are just a handful
of names like that."
Ruth,
like those other icons, died prematurely -- throat cancer took him at age
53 in August 1948. His body lay in state for two days at the entrance to
Yankee Stadium, where more than 100,000 people came to pay their final
respects.
Tom
Stevens, who is 53 and works for an engineering firm in Las Vegas,
sometimes struggles to comprehend his unlikely connection to sports
history.
"I
look at it as having the good fortune of being born into baseball
royalty," Stevens said. "It's kind of like Prince Charles,
without the ears, the castle and the polo ponies."
Said
Julia Ruth Stevens of the Babe's enduring impact: "I'm sure he
thought it would last for a while, but I think he would be astounded to
know how many people still think about him and talk about him."
-------------------
29:
Record
home-run total by Babe Ruth in 1919 for the Boston Red Sox.
54:
Home
runs hit by Ruth in 1920, his first season as a New York Yankee.
50:
Most
home runs by any other American League team in 1920
714:
Ruth's
career homer total
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