As the South Lexington boys of summer lace up their cleats, break in their gloves, and take to the Shillito Park fields of the South Lexington Youth Baseball League, they will be doing as others ballplayers under the age of 12 have been doing for half a century.
In its 50th year, the South Lexington Youth Baseball League has ballooned to more than 700 athletes on 60 teams in five different levels of competition. This booming amateur league keeps America's pastime alive while instilling the virtues of a successful life for the youth of the area, according to Logan Bailey, former president of the league and current player agent in charge of setting rosters and recruiting participants.
"Even competing at this young age, you learn a work ethic and you learn about working as a team and working with others at being successful. (Being successful) individually is one thing, being successful and improving as a group is very satisfying," said Bailey who has been involved in the league off and on since the 70s with his children and grandchildren.
"Being successful doesn't mean you have to win every game, or you're on a winning team. At this age level you can see such marked improvement from the first practices in March to the end of the regular season in the latter part of June," he said.
Darren Carpenter agrees that success in the league is a lot more than winning and losing, and said that can be directly seen in his two sons currently playing in the league.
"For my son, it gives him something to do," Carpenter said of his 12-year-old son Taylor. "If not, he would be laying in bed playing video games, and that's not what he needs to be doing.
"I bet he's lost 10 pounds in the last month since the season's practices have begun. During the winter he didn't do anything other than watch TV, play video games, and eat," said Carpenter, who coaches his other son in South Lexington Youth Baseball's Rookie League. "Plus it just gives him something to do, he just loves to come out here. Right when he walks in the door from school he knows where we're going next, every day. We know where we're going, walk in the door, change clothes, we're going to the ballpark."
This is Taylor Carpenter's first year playing new positions behind the plate as a catcher and at first base, a big change from last season when he played right field. While Taylor said he likes playing infield better because he no longer has to battle the late afternoon sun on fly balls to the outfield, his dad said parts of being a team, like changing positions within the team, is all a part of the learning experience sports can provide.
Some of the league's younger players, like Lance Michleson's sons Brooks, 6, and Burke, 4, show real teamwork in the South Lexington Youth Baseball T-ball League as upward of four players converge on the ball each time it is hit. While not the best strategy for proper play, Michleson-a former UK wide receiver in the Tim Couch days-said not only did learning team sports growing up help send him to college, but it taught him skills he still draws upon in everyday life.
"It's important to have them learn how to interact with other kids and being on a team sport they know at an early age how to depend on other people," he said.†
With time and experience in different levels of the league, players begin to depend on their other teammates as half the fielders no longer start chasing after each hit ball.
Outside of getting to know parents of other players, Michelson said he enjoys watching his sons participate together, something he will encourage them to do until they are no longer interested in baseball.
"It's a good opportunity for them to get involved in something that is productive, clean, and healthy for them. It's a good thing to teach them principles for the rest of their lives, responsibility, hard work, and those kinds of things," he said.
The league has different well-manicured fields for each level of competition with home run walls at commensurate lengths that are kept up by parents and coaches for the league.
Darren Carpenter said while happy with the shape of the fields, he is not surprised with their condition as he worked with fellow parents until 10 p.m. the Sunday prior to opening day to make sure they were in good shape.
"They spend a lot of time and effort on the fields," he said. "There are some leagues that you pay a lot of money for, but you don't get anything for it."
The parents aren't the only ones getting a lot for their effort as South Lexington Youth Baseball boasts a number of World Series Championships in the Babe Ruth League's Cal Ripken Division for 12-year-olds and younger.
In 2001 Donnie Warner took a team of 12-year-old league all-stars to the Cal Ripken World Series. That group is one of many he has managed since becoming involved in the league in 1979. In total, the league has sent nine teams to the Ripken World Series (or Bambino World Series as it was formally called). One team came back with a Little League World Series title before the league switched affiliations in the 1980s.
Warner said he's been coaching the South Lexington Youth Baseball Cardinals so long that he now is coaching second-generation players.
"I actually have a player's child who played on my first Cardinals team," said Warner, who was honored nationally as 2002's Ripken Baseball Youth Coach of the Year. "We're seeing all the grandkids come through now. It's amazing how many there are that are still in this end of town."
While the 60 teams of South Lexington Youth Baseball can be found on the fields this spring and summer, ground has been set aside in the complex for a whole new league to get underway this fall.
Construction has already begun on a Miracle League field, designed to allow disabled children to play the same sport loved by members of the South Lexington Youth Baseball League.
The Miracle League is slated to start play in xxx, but organizers are still looking to reach their $650,000 fundraising goal to get the field and league operational.
Bailey said it seemed like a good fit to give the Miracle League some of their South Lexington league land and to house them at Shillito Park.
"We understand their basic philosophy of wanting those handicapped kids playing the same like others. We're rooting for it," he said.
Though Bailey said he likes to accommodate as many players as he can for the South Lexington Youth Baseball League, registration is now closed for the season that began in early April.†
"We don't want to turn anybody away if their kid wants to play, but you've got to get to a situation where you've got to set your rosters and you've got to stop adding," said Bailey, who has two grandsons currently in the league.
A sports reporter himself, covering the Thoroughbred industry as a manager at the Lexington office of the Daily Racing Form, Bailey said he still enjoys the level of competition on display at Shillito.
"You watch the 9- to 12-year-olds at our highest level and they compete, and it's a great game and it's a quick game. It's really well played and there's a lot of enthusiasm on the players' and parents' part, and, they're pretty good," Bailey said.
For more information about the Miracle League, visit www.bluegrassmiracleleague.org. For more information about the South Lexington Youth Baseball League, visit www.slyb.org.