The basics of baseball

Just as the pros have spring training, the Valley Stream Baseball League has winter training.

The league recently wrapped up its six-week series of baseball clinics for children signed up for the upcoming season. Children are broken down by age group, with the youngest session for 4- and 5-year-olds. There are also groups for 6-, 7-, and 8-year-olds.

League President Bob Inzerillo said the students in the younger group will be playing the league for the first time. Many of them, he said, have never picked up a baseball before so coaches in the clinics must teach the basics. “We want to show them how to hold a bat, how to hold a ball,” he said, adding that many don’t know what the positions are, or which way to run around the bases.

The clinics are held in local elementary school gymnasiums. Leading the sessions are Inzerillo, league Secretary Richard Graves and three or four coaches. Inzerillo said each clinic typically draws about 30 children.

Bob Chau’s 5-year-old son, Tyler, will be playing with the Valley Stream Baseball League for the first time this spring in the tee ball division. Tyler attended clinics at the Robert W. Carbonaro School.

Chau said his son has played some tee ball in the backyard. “We’ll see how well he plays in a team setting,” Chau said. “He was really excited to come so hopefully that’s a good sign.”

Peter Gale’s son Connor, 5, will also be playing his first season with the Baseball League. Gale said Connor played flag football with the Green Hornets in the fall and a lot of his friends will be joining him on the diamond.

“This is his love,” Gale said of Connor. “He loves baseball. He’s looking forward to it.”

Gale said the coaches did a great job instructing his son and the other players on the basics of baseball.

Inzerillo said Blessed Sacrament School used to have an athletic association that ran baseball clinics. When that league folded about eight years ago, Inzerillo said, the Valley Stream Baseball League took over.

Whether it is 4-year-olds learning baseball for the first time, or 8-year-olds who have played for a few seasons, Inzerillo said it is most important to teach the fundamentals. “So when the season starts, they have a nice perspective about what the game is all about and what they’re expected to,” he said. “You have to look at it from the perspective of what do they need to do when they go out on the field.”

The different ages play by different rules. The 4- and 5-year-olds play tee ball while the 6- and 7-year-olds play with their coaches pitching. In the 8-year-old division, the players pitch for three innings a game. “It gives them their first chance at learning how to throw in a regulation game with an umpire,” Inzerillo said.

The clinics end after children move beyond the 8-year-old division. By then, individual coaches hold practices with their teams.