Westside Thunder Baseball

We are going to have our first winter practice this coming Sunday at Pinnacle in Medina, from 8pm to 9pm on the indoor baseball field. We also have a batting cage during the time so that we can rotate the players through some additional hitting. Please plan to arrive 10 to 15 minutes early to stretch so that we can maximize our time on the field.

Welcome back from the holidays and our winter break. Baseball season is just around the corner and we have a few announcements:

1. There will be no formal team activities during the St. Hilary Spring Break (April 7 through April 15).

2. We have scheduled three tournaments and are evaluating a fourth as follows:

a. Buckeye Classic (April 20-22) – played at the Kent State University’s Allerton Complex, JEDD Park and Cascade Valley Park in the Akron area.

b. Ryan Ostronisky Memorial Northwest Community Travel Classic (May 16-20) – local SSBL tournament put on by Northwest.

c. Suburban Showdown (June 6 – 10) – local SSBL tournament put on by Copley.

d. TBD (June 29 – July 1). We are evaluating a number of tournaments that are available that weekend. We anticipate that this will be either a local tournament or one in Columbus.

3. Our regular season SSBL schedule will not be determined until March 24 when the league scheduling meeting is held. We expect to play between 20 and 22 SSBL games.

4. We hope to have a practice next Sunday evening, January 29, at Pinnacle. We will update everyone tomorrow with details. In addition, we hope to add a few more practices in February and March to supplement what we have already scheduled at Ventura’s Baseball Academy during that time period.

5. Our home field for the majority of our games will be the Copley Community Park, though we may still have a handful of games at our Mull Ave field.

6. We are going to extend the final payment requirement for the team to February 18.

7. We are working on uniforms now and hope to do the fittings at one of our practices in mid February. You will need to provide payment for the uniforms at the time of the fitting.

8. We will plan to have a brief parents’ meeting in February.

Thanks to everyone for getting back to us with their preferred uniform number choices (numbers are posted on the “Roster” page now). As previously noted, we have 10 committed players for the coming year.

We have added two optional practices to our schedule, both at Pinnacle (Medina facility). We have rented the indoor baseball field from 7:30pm to 8:30pm November 20 and December 11. We would like those who can attend to arrive 10 minutes early to stretch so that we can maximize our use of the field. Also there is still time available for those who haven’t already to sign up for one or more of the Kent State Baseball camps on December 3/4 and December 17/18.

We have enough players to go forward with our Saturday October 29 practice at Pinnacle (Medina location). We have rented the indoor baseball field for one hour, 12pm to 1pm. We ask that everyone arrive 10 minutes early if possible to stretch as we would like to maximize our time on the field. We will then plan to have a 10 minute wrap-up meeting at the end with the players, ending practice at 1:10pm.

We are looking into the possibility of moving our Saturday October 29 practice indoors due to all of the cancellations we have had and current field conditions. Due to indoor field availability, we would need to run the practice from from 12pm to 1pm instead of the previously scheduled outdoor 1:30pm to 3:00pm . Please refer to the e-mail we sent out on the topic for details and respond as soon as possible regarding your availability.

Same story this week — continued wet weather is going to prevent us from having outdoor practice on Saturday. We’ll try again next Saturday.

Unfortunately our run of wet weather is continuing. With all the rain we have had this week and are forecast to have over the next couple of days our field is not going to be playable this weekend, so we are cancelling our Saturday October 15th practice. Hopefully the weather will turn in our favor in the second half of the month for our remaining outdoor Fall practices.

The weather is finally cooperating and our field has dried out enough so our practice for tomorrow, Saturday October 8 is a go.

Unfortunately the continued wet weather and forecast for rain over the next couple of days has made our field unplayable again this weekend, so we are cancelling our upcoming Saturday October 1st practice. The good news is the extended forecast looks great for next week so we’ll look forward to seeing you at our October 8 practice.