Hello Buddy Baseball Fans,
Our 21st season of Buddy Baseball is well underway! This season we have 20 teams, with 136 players, 154 buddies, 53 coaches. We have 270 families and 124 different schools represented from the Tampa Bay area. In our very first season, 10 years ago we had 36 players, 38 buddies and 6 teams. My how we have grown. We have played hundreds and hundreds of games over the years, but our very first game was played exactly the same way as it is today.
Many thanks to everyone who made Opening Day so special: The Tampa Breakfast Sertoma Club who hosted a great cookout, the Temple Terrace Boy Scout Troop 120 for presenting the flag at all 10 games, the Tampa Bay Rays mascot - Raymond for cheering on our players, and the King High School - National Honor Society for popping popcorn.
Our main fundraiser, the Buddy Run will be on Sunday morning, November 17, 2019. There will be a 5K race, a 1 Mile Fun Run and the Buddy Dash for our runners with special needs. More information below.
Follow us on social media (see below) and tag us in your post. The best photo of the season will win a prize!
Thanks to all of our sponsors and volunteers who keep Buddy Baseball going strong.
PLAY BALL!!
Russ Oberbroeckling
Executive Director
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We had a great Opening Day. 109 of the participants are new to Buddy Baseball! That's 32% of the league.
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Our all accessible synthetic turf is well under construction. Thanks to the City of Temple Terrace, Hillsborough County, Hillsborough County School Board and the state of Florida for their support of Buddy Baseball and the special needs community in the Tampa Bay area.
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Sign up for our 9th Annual Buddy Run at Lake Park in Lutz on North Dale Mabry on Sunday morning, November 17th. There will be a 5K Race, a 1 Mile Fun Run and the Buddy Dash for our runners with special needs
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Click on the link for all the information and to register. Thanks to Suncoast Credit Union for your title sponsorship!
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Player Spotlight
Andrew Alvarez
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Andrew Alvarez
Andrew is ten years old and attends Hunters Green Elementary. This is his sixth season playing Buddy Baseball. Andrew was born in Miami and loves Cuban food. His favorite dish is rice, beans and chicken. Andrew is a huge sports fan. He loves all things sports... football, baseball, hockey, tennis, soccer, golf, etc. His favorite sports team is the Miami Dolphins. Andrew has a brother and a sister and loves to travel. He visited Maine and Boston this summer. His favorite restaurant is Grillsmith and he wants to be a tennis player when he grows up
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Buddy Spotlight
Destiny Newkirt
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Destiny Newkirt
Destiny is a long time buddy with Buddy Baseball. She attends King High School and is 15 years old. Destiny plays volleyball and her favorite breakfast is pancakes with extra syrup. Her favorite subject in school is science and she would like to meet Serena Williams.
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Rookie Spotlight
Travis Kaufman
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Travis Kaufman
This is Travis's first season with Buddy Baseball. He is nine years old and is home schooled. He has a sister and two dogs. He loves iPad driving apps and building in Minecraft. He's really good at flying remote control airplanes on a simulator and flies remote control planes out at a field in Zephyrhills with his Dad.
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C
oach Spotlight - Joe Sass
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Joe Sass
Joe is from Michigan and has been in Florida for 33 years now. He is a software engineer working on machine learning. Joe has a 21 year old son name Spencer who is an Eagle Scout. His hobbies include riding motorcycles (and working on them) and working on cars. He has been coming to the Buddy Baseball games for about four years, helping coach the Wildcats from time to time, but became an "official" coach two years ago. Fun fact: Joe was given the nickname Squatch. Since his last name is Sass, his friends call him Sasquatch. His son's nickname is Yeti (Sasquatch Jr.).
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Volunteer Spotlight
Hayley Fedor
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Hayley Fedor
Hayley is a student at the University of South Florida and this is her first season with Buddy Baseball. She comes early on game days to help set up, helps coach the Thunder, fills in as a game announcer and as a coach for the other teams when needed.
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Parent Spotlight
Austin and Tonia Root
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Austin and Tonia Root
Tonia and Austin have been married for five years. Tonia is from Lansing MI and Austin is from Cape Coral. They have two children Gage and Cloei. The family enjoys vacationing in their RV with lots of camping and outdoor activities. This is Gage's 7th season in Buddy Baseball, and the family especially loves the Buddy Baseball Bash and the baseball clinic at Tropicana Field - home of the Tampa Bay Rays. Buddy Baseball is a big part of the Root family life. Gage refuses to miss a game, even when he's in a cast, because he knows he can still play in a wheelchair.
Tonia just published a book entitled "Gage... My Beautiful Boy, The inspiring story of a fight for life! " She wrote it as a tragic, but inspirational story about Gage and her family's life. Gage was happy about Tonia writing the book because he wants people to know that they can get better if they get hurt. Tonia writes about how Buddy Baseball positively impacted their family life in the epilogue. You can purchase Tonia's book through the link below or talk to her about it while she's cheering on the Jaguars.
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Grand Slam
Sponsor Spotlight
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Thanks to all of our Grand Slam Sponsors for making our league a success! We appreciate your support!
Mortellaro Law
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Follow us on our social media accounts and tag us in your photos. The best photo at the end of the season will win a prize.
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When shopping on line. Consider using Amazon Smile. A portion of the the sale will be donated back to Buddy Baseball, no extra cost to you. Just use
https://smile.amazon.com/
selecting Buddy Baseball as the organization that you are supporting the next time you are shopping on Amazon. Thanks.
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Did you know that Mickey Mantle played in 12 World Series and he holds the World Series record for the most home runs with 18? He also holds the World Series records for most runs (42) runs batted in (40) and total bases (123).
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Until next time... PLAY BALL!!
Russ Oberbroeckling
Executive Director
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Spotlights
End of Season Party
Buddy Run
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