To the editor:

It’s hard to believe that spring is a little over a week away.  With spring just around the corner, that can only mean baseball is not too far behind.  The Newton Little League Board has been meeting since the first week of February laying out plans for the season.  As president of the Newton Little League, I’m excited about this season and want to share with you some changes we are making.  We are in the process of putting together plans and forming new partnerships that will help us to develop players and coaches.  I believe that 2013 will be the turning point for Newton Little League and baseball in Newton.

This year we have two new co-coaches for high school baseball, they are Darin Tisdale and Pat Riley.  Coach Tisdale and Coach Riley asked to be a part of our planning process this year because they understand for their teams to excel, it begin at the lower levels.  With their help we are completely restructuring our leagues so that we better utilize our players practice and game times.   The coaches’ philosophy is pretty straight forward.  We need to teach our players the game of baseball, but keep it fun, simple and exciting so that they want to play.  In addition we need to teach our volunteer coaches how to keep it fun, simple and exciting so that their players are excited about playing.  We are purchasing new training aids and practice information that will help all our coaches teach this philosophy.   Every coach in each of our leagues will have the same information and drills that they will use, this way every player is being taught the same thing.  The idea is that players will be moving from drill to drill with little time to stand around.  It will be fun and interesting to see both players and coaches develop together.