BOYS OF SUMMER

While the big boys of summer (major leaguers) will play into October, some youth leagues end in late June or early July. However, Jody Botner wanted something more for his son, Quinton, and some other players that played in the Corbin Little League’s Machine Pitch Division for 7-8 year olds.

Botner convinced Robert Krutsinger that playing travel ball was a good way to get their kids some extra time on the baseball diamond before school started and the football leagues begin.

“He had been around travel ball with his older son and really liked it,” Krutsinger said. “To be quite honest, we are getting behind in Corbin. If you look around like Barbourville, they have some super little ball teams in the 7-8-9 year old divisions as well as London.”

“It was an opportunity to give our kids the chance to play some tougher competition and improve our skills, plus our season had come to an end and we had a couple of months left before football,” Krutsinger said. “It was an opportunity to put some kids together and get some more baseball in at a competitive level.”

With that said Botner and Krutsinger joined forces with Larry Dickerson, Jeremy Baker and Tony Morales to form the Corbin Icemen.

“It has been an eye-opening experience for most of these kids because they had come out of our Rookie League, Machine Pitch where we play with a rubber ball and every pitch is a strike,” added Krutsinger.

“It took them a little time to get used to a real baseball,” Krutsinger said.

“We are very proud and impressed with what our kids learned at this point,” he said. It has just been four weeks, a couple of practices and three tournaments. They have picked up a lot from playing the teams that we have played. Playing tougher competition and playing real baseball rules has really helped and it’s starting to pay off,” Krutsinger said.

Botner was the one who guided the team in the direction of USSSA, or better known as U-Triple S-A. According to Krutsinger, Botner investigated what this new organization had to offer.  “Grand Slam Promotions out of Knoxville has been coming to Corbin hosting some tournaments, so we decided to put a team together and play a couple of games.”

“We scrambled around that last week of June as our league tournaments were coming to an end. We had two practices and went into that not sure what we were getting into,” he said. “USSSA uses big barrel bats and one of the dads compared that to bringing a knife to a gun fight.”

“We were not prepared and our kids had not grasped the real true meaning of baseball, knowing their situation every play, knowing what their count is, how many outs there are and things like that,” Krutsinger said. “We were totally unprepared, but it was an opportunity to play some ball and we all learned a lot that Saturday afternoon.”

Three weeks later the Icemen are learning what baseball is all about, the long summer days on a hot field and the joys of throwing out a runner at home plate. And, you can call the starting catcher, Ice woman, because Kaylee Morales, the only girl on the team, recently tagged out a runner at the plate.

The team finished second in the Kentucky Invitational held at London, July 10 and was in Estill County last weekend where they went 1-2. They beat Clay County 4-1, but lost to South Lexington 14-2 in pool play. They lost to Rockcastle County, 9-2 in the elimination round Sunday.

You can watch the Icemen in action this week as they host their own tournament at Rotary Park. They have four teams including a team from Whitley County in the 8 & Under Division and four teams in the 10 & Under Division.

Krutsinger said Grand Slam Promotions will host another tournament in Corbin, July 29-31 and depending on what the coaches and parents plan, they may play in that one as well. “If they want to continue on we want to give them an opportunity to play baseball.”

“We had it in our minds to play in one or two tournaments, but all the players and parents have been so eager to play after that first Saturday that it has been two-fold. Our kids were behind some of these other eight-year-olds in the area and it has been a good opportunity to play some good baseball against some good competition. It has really helped improve our skills,” Krutsinger said.

“We can’t believe how every kid as been to every practice and nobody seems to be burn out. The kids are eager to be there and improve. That’s why we jumped on some of these other tournaments,” he said.

The joy on Peyton Addison’s face showed it all Saturday afternoon when he belted a home run over the Estill County Little League center field fence and every play scrambled out of the dugout to meet him at home plate hoping next time it was their turn to send one over the fence.