The White Sox baseball camp was a
hit with a number of kids from Cayman’s little league programme who were
present last week. All offered intriguing backgrounds and among those with
great stories were members of the Under-17 travel team.
The squad went to Miami this summer
under the tutelage of Jon DaCosta and were represented at the camp by the likes
of Christopher Bennett, Mark Chisholm, Alex Pascal, Tyler Lee and Lance Morris.
The group got instruction on the various aspects of baseball from five coaches
affiliated with the White Sox’s youth development outfit called the BullSox
Training Academy.
The visiting coaches were Pete
Caliendo, Mike Huff, Marty Kobernus, Dan Schaffer and Justin Stone. That group
oversaw some 70 odd kids between the ages of seven and 18 at the Field of
Dreams facility in George Town
Arguably the biggest name out of
the U17 youngsters is Pascal. The tall, lanky youngster rose to prominence this
Spring as one of the members of Cayman’s CARIFTA Games team. A javelin thrower
alongside Mauricio Terry, Pascal held his own on the baseball field and seemed
comfortable in the various phases of the sport.
Pascal, 16, states he has been
playing baseball for more than five years and the camp was a good refresher
course.
“I’ve been playing baseball for the
last six years,” Pascal said. “Track and baseball are the two sports that I do.
The camp taught me and the rest of the guys some new stuff with positioning and
basic fielding. The coaches really taught me the value of sound fundamentals by
focusing on things like (batting) stances.
“Having my team-mates and other
young people (near my age) there was great. Everything about the camp was cool
to me.”
One of Pascal’s team-mates who gave
his feelings on the camp was Christopher Bennett. The full-time University
College of the Cayman Islands student made a special sacrifice to attend. He
committed to the coaching sessions around his classes during the day. Bennett,
18, stated that the camp was worth his efforts.
“It was fun, I really liked it,”
Bennett said. “For me this camp was great because it comes after being on the
national team this summer with coach Jon.”
Last week’s camp marked the second
time this year that the White Sox sent a group of coaches to Cayman (another contingent
was here in January). The partnership between the pro club and the Cayman
Islands Little League is now into its fifth year and there are indications that
the relationship is set to keep growing.
Out of last week’s group the two
most vocal coaches were Mike Huff and Justin Stone. Both spent significant
working with the U17 kids. Huff, 47, stated the young men showed Cayman’s
baseball talent has a bright future.
“The dedication of those kids and
seeing their level of interest was great,” Huff said. “As the Cayman teams get
better hopefully it rubs off on those kids (like Alex) who do other sports. The
goal is they’ll say I’ll focus solely on baseball. Of course having off-island
teams come down to play will help.”
Stone, 34, is the general manager
of baseball operations at the BullSox Academy and is a touted hitting
instructor. He said that the youngsters needed extra focus in practice and in
the future he hopes to electronically record their progress at the plate.
“I worked a lot with the older
kids,” Stone said. “My thing was teaching them better practice habits. They had
never been pushed and it’s funny because I’ve never had to issue more push-ups
in my life. There is no doubt that Cayman has talented kids here. But they have
to raise their development for the future of the sport in Cayman.
“Being a young guy I prefer to do
analyses on computer of young players that breaks down things like people’s
swings. It’s called digital motion analysis and uses a camera and laptop to
capture movement in one thousands of a second. The last time I used that
technology with the Cayman camp was two years ago. Hopefully I’ll be able to
use that technology to compare those kids and their swings to big leaguers like
Joe Mauer (of the Minnesota Twins).”
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