CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Through heat domes and rainy days, the Charlottesville Tom Sox’s summer camps have been keeping local kids on the baseball field.
Over the course of the season for the Valley League summer ball team, players serve as counselors to kids six to 12 years old, imparting their baseball skills and making the game fun for four days of day camps on CHO Airport Field at Charlottesville High School. The final camp is being held this week, after it was postponed due to record temperatures.
“We avoided the heat last week, which was great,” coach Randy Tomlin said. “That would have been too risky for the young kids… We manage, as long as the field is not too wet, and during the (heat) we have plenty of water breaks.”
As the Tom Sox’s regular season draws to a close, with eight games left before the Valley Baseball League playoffs begin July 19, the camps are a time for community outreach and growing the youth sports landscape of Charlottesville.
Tomlin, in his third season leading the team, noted that for Tom Sox players, who come from 26 different colleges and universities around the country, working with local kids is a moment for giving back.
“The Tom Sox organization is obviously providing a team here that’s competitive in the Valley League, but also providing players that are coming from all over, that can be of service to the community,” Tomlin said. “It’s providing a means to baseball awareness, and encouragement (and) enthusiasm.”
That enthusiasm often looks like a Tom Sox player launching a ball into the air in the outfield, as a crowd of excited campers watches one of their ranks attempt to catch it on its way down, or spirited swinging in the batting cage.
Brady Harris, a seventh grader at the camp, said the four days are a time to focus on specific skills, using the know-how of the Tom Sox to become a better player.
“I’ve been watching a lot of baseball this year, trying to just get my swing better,” Harris said. “I’ve just been learning and trying to get better from them.”
Ben Cardone, catcher and sophomore at Virginia Military Institute, said that although campers may be young, their approach to the game is just as earnest as seasoned players, especially when it comes to batting.
“They tell you they want a specific pitch in a certain spot,” Cardone said. “They’re pretty picky, but having a good time in the cages.”
Competitive attitudes, too, abound, which has reminded some Tom Sox of how they were when they first started playing.
“One of my favorite parts about summer ball is connecting with the younger guys and the younger kids in the community,” Cardone said. “I was just telling a kid a few minutes ago, ‘There’s no crying in baseball.’ These kids are super competitive, and sometimes they get a little emotional, but it’s all part of it.”
The Tom Sox have had an uncharacteristically bumpy season. The four-time Valley League champions endured a seven-game losing streak to start the season and now sit two games under .500, in third place in the Valley League standings.
“At the beginning, we were pretty short and had to overcome some things the way we started off,” Tomlin said. “The guys have improved greatly, and still trying to improve to win games, and compete, try to get to get into the playoffs, and then compete for another championship.”
But through the ebbs and flows of summer ball, the Tom Sox’s camps have served as a reminder to players that the game is something simple that they have loved from a young age, for the camaraderie and competition at its core.
“It just keeps us grounded,” Chase Jackson, shortstop and junior at Seminole State College of Florida said. “We’re still playing a kids’ game, even though we’re getting older and older, but it’s still just a kids’ game at the end of the day.”
