Hello Buddy Baseball Fans,
I hope everyone is enjoying the summer. We had a great time in the July 4th parade. Thanks to all who came out to be part of our float.
Thanks to the Tampa Bay Rays for providing Buddy Baseball 200 tickets to a recent game! We had a great time and a few families told me it was their first time to a Rays game.
Fox 13 - Good Day Tampa Bay - "Charley's World" will be out to the Buddy Baseball field to feature our league on Friday morning, July 27th. We will be playing ball all morning long. Tune in if you can or set your DVRs.
Registration is now open for the fall season. Opening Day is Saturday, September 29th. We will be playing ball before you know it. Sign up now!
Russ Oberbroeckling
Executive Director
|
|
July 4th Parade
Thanks to all who were a part of our float, tossing out beads and candy and handing out flyers for the fall season. Thanks to all who donated their beads to us over the past year. We collected over 3000! Now we need to start all over again.
|
|
Gatorade Player of the Year
Lexi Kilfoyl
|
|
Lexi Kilfoyl
The Gatorade Play it Forward program, honors high school student-athletes who have achieved athletic excellence in conjunction with high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character. This year, the Florida softball player of the year is Lexi Kilfoyl from Academy at the Lakes high school in Land O' Lakes. She has been awarded a $1000 grant from Gatorade to give to a local or national youth sports organization that helps young athletes reap the benefits of sport. Lexi chose Buddy Baseball to receive her grant! Although she does not play Buddy Baseball, her friends do and she knows all about our league.
Lexi will be a Senior in high school and she led her team to a 26-4 record and the Class 2A state championship this past season. She posted a 23-1 record with a 0.32 earned run average and 249 strikeouts in 154 innings pitched. At the plate, Lexi produced a .482 batting average with five home runs. Lexi has maintained a 3.78 GPA in the classroom. She has made a verbal commitment to play softball on scholarship at the University of Alabama in the fall of 2019. Congratulations on your award and thank you for selecting Buddy Baseball as recipient of your $1000 grant.
Photo courtesy of Joe Winn
|
|
Fox 13 - Good Day Tampa Bay
|
We have been invited to be on Fox 13 - Good Day Tampa Bay, "Charley's World" on Friday morning, July 27th. Charley is going to come out to the fields and do live interviews all morning long. Interviews will be around 7:50 a.m., 8:20 a.m., 8:50 a.m. and 9:20 a.m. The Tampa Bay Rays mascot - Raymond will be at the fields around 8:30 a.m.
|
|
Player Spotlight - Gage Root
|
|
Gage Root
Gage is a 13 years old home schooler. He loves his Rottweiler named Mayhem and loves riding his four wheeler and driving his jacked up Grave Digger golf cart. Gage's favorite food is his Momma's sausage gravy and biscuits. If he had $1000, Gage would buy a dirt bike. He would like to meet the rock band Imagine Dragons.
|
|
Buddy Spotlight - Hannah Douglas
|
|
Hannah Douglas
Hannah is 18 and graduated from Durant High School and will be attending Hillsborough Community College in the fall studying psychology. She enjoys spending time at the beach with her friends and family. Hannah has a dog and two cats. Her special talent is playing the piano and her favorite restaurant is Moe's.
|
|
Rookie Spotlight
Carry and Jason Underwood
|
|
Carry Underwood Jason Underwood
Carry and Jason are twins. They are 13 years old and attend Frost Elementary. Carry's favorite restaurant is McDonalds and his favorite ice cream flavor is chocolate. His favorite thing about summer is playing basketball.
Jason's favorite restaurant is Smoky Bones. His favorite subject in school is Science and he likes Rap music.
|
|
Coach Spotlight
Rachael Nathaniel
|
|
Rachel Nathaniel
Rachel was born in West Virginia and has lived in Ohio, Iowa and Florida. She has spent the last 25 years in Florida, so she considers herself a Floridian.
All of Rachel's immediate family live in the Tampa Bay area which she enjoys. She is m married with three kids. Rachel has volunteered with Buddy Baseball for one season and her son has played for three seasons.
Rachel works at Citigroup as a financial analyst and has been in the banking industry for over 20 years. She likes to sit by the pool, spend time with family, go to sports games and watch Buddy Baseball.
|
|
Volunteer Spotlight
Dennis Mueller
|
|
Dennis Mueller
Dennis and his family have been involved with Buddy Baseball since the very beginning. His son Zachary was one of our original players. Dennis works for Alvarez Roofing as a Roofing Superintendent. Alvarez Roofing supplies the truck for our July 4th float and Dennis has been our driver for the parade every year that we have been in the parade. Eight years now. He is on our Board of Directors and is one of our league photographers.
Dennis is originally from Chicago and is a White Sox fan and moved to Florida 18 years ago. He has been married to Kim (also a Buddy Baseball volunteer) for 27 years. They have two children, Zachary and Samantha who lives in New York City. His hobbies include photography, Sudoku and going to USF baseball games.
What he enjoys about Buddy Baseball is seeing the smiles on the kid's faces during the games.
|
|
New Tampa Players
Penguin Project
|
Established in 2004, Penguin Project gives children with special needs the opportunity to be on stage. All roles in a Penguin Project production are filled with artists with special needs, including Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism, intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities visual impairment, hearing impairment, and other neurological disorders. They are joined on stage by a dedicated group of "peer mentors" - children the same age without disabilities who have volunteered to work side-by-side with them through 4 months of rehearsals and through the final performance. By providing access to community theater, The Penguin Project demonstrates that the special challenges of a disability should not handicap a child's ability to participate in life's experiences.
The show will be Disney's Aladdin Jr. Show dates are April 5 - 7, 2019.
Below is the link with the details. Contact The New Tampa Players for audition information, peer mentors, production team, rehearsal schedule, etc.
|
Disability Resource Hub provides information about local community services, offers support to families and helps businesses convey their unique services to the special needs community as an all-in-one resource publication, in print and online.
Phone: Phyllis Guthman - 813-803-0956
|
Amazon's fourth-annual Prime Day is coming up on Tuesday, July 17th and will feature one-of-a-kind deals exclusively for Prime members. This is one of the biggest shopping days of the year and a great time to shop at smile.amazon.com and Amazon will donate to Buddy Baseball Inc. Your shopping makes a difference.
|
Why was Cinderella taken out of the game by her manager?
Because she ran away from the ball!
|
Until next time... PLAY BALL!!
Russ Oberbroeckling
Executive Director
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlights
4th of July Parade
Fall season information
Registration
|
|
|
|
|
