The Bash Program I’m Most Proud Of
As we close in on our 15th anniversary, I can look back at so many classes, clinics, camps and other events we have offered and feel good about the quality of instruction we have provided, the fun we've delivered and the healthy competition we've fostered.
But the one program that we created that I'm most happy and pride of is Bash Sandlot. If your player has done Sandlot with us, you know why I feel this way. The life lessons that the kids get out of playing a game that they run themselves are so important. And the opportunities for our young players to learn those lessons are too few.
Several years ago, hearing high school coaches complain that they had no leaders on their teams prompted me to think about what's different about today's youth sports experiences than years ago. I thought back to my own childhood and it didn't take me long to realize what was missing: the many games we played each week with 12 or 15 of our friends and ZERO adults.
Sure, we played "little league" baseball with grown-up coaches and umps, but we played far more pickup games in the park. On sunny, blue-sky days each spring and summer, we made up rules to fit the number of kids we had or the space we had to play in. We umped the games ourselves and settled arguments on our own. Leaders emerged. The only sign of a parent was when my dad would step out of our yard and whistle loudly for me to come home for dinner. (His whistle served as the "dinner bell" for the other guys, as well.)
We had so many great times playing in those games, with no idea that we were learning lessons that would serve us for the rest of our lives.
After I concluded what the kids needed, it still took me a couple of years to go for it, but five years ago I launched Bash Sandlot. The reaction from both parents and kids was great. That first season we had enough players each week for a game. By year three, we had enough players for two games every Friday and broke the kids up by age.
I could tell you stories about how things go during a Friday morning Sandlot, but Dayn Perry of CBS Sports did a better job than I could in his amazing article about it in August of 2019. Read his story here.
Last summer, some 120 young ballplayers, 9-14 years old, played 9 weeks of Sandlot, many of them coming week in and week out. I can't wait to get started again this summer. Our kids need Sandlot more than ever.