Long Beach State baseball may have ended its season more than two months ago, but that doesn’t mean baseball has stopped at The Beach.
Dirtbag Camp has kept America’s pastime alive at LBSU, as little leaguers have taken over the campus baseball field for most of the summer. Kids armed with bats and gloves have shown up each day for batting practice, drills and friendly scrimmages led by current and former Dirtbags players and coaches.
“We love it,” said Jessica Cheshire, a parent of one of the kids. “He’s a baseball fanatic. He would do it every day if he could.”
Dirtbags Camp Director David Yamane said the camp has two goals: make sure the kids have fun, and help them improve as baseball players.
“Our camp philosophy is that we’re a baseball camp in the summer, as opposed to a summer camp about baseball,” he said. “A lot of kids already have a love for the game, and we want to cultivate that. We want to help them become better players because for you to move up, you have to get better, or else it won’t be fun anymore.”
Yamane said skill was hardly an issue for most of the players, though, as a fair amount have had to leave the camp for trips with little league all-star teams.
“We have three kids who left last week to go to a world series, and we have four kids who went to a regional in Colorado this past week,” Yamane said “We had an entire all-star team win their Southern California region, and they went last week up to Utah for the western regional.”
Dirtbags second baseman Colton Vaughn said he noticed the talent as well.
“We’ve got some gamers,” Vaughn said. “Some of the 10- and 11-year-olds are pretty good.”
While many Dirtbags are out playing in summer baseball leagues, Vaughn, center fielder Colby Brenner and others are spending their summers helping out with Dirtbag Camp.
“It’s better than any summer job I can think of,” Vaughn said. “It’s kind of rewarding coming back to teach little kids that actually want to learn.”
Yamane, who took over as camp director when Troy Buckley became LBSU’s head coach three years ago, said Dirtbag Camp has become something more than just a baseball camp for kids.
“Our goal is to get them better, but we also want them to come out and watch us play,” he said. ““I want these kids to get to know our program a lot better, so we teach them baseball and Dirtbags history.”
The kids may be at the camp to play baseball and learn, but they have the chance to go home with a lot more. Yamane said that current and former players, even those who are in the major leagues, sign baseball cards each year to be given out as prizes at the camp.
“Jered Weaver and Tulo [Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki] have sent autographs in the past,” Yamane said. He said one of this year’s top prizes is the autograph of Adam Wilk, a relief pitcher for the Detroit Tigers who pitched in last year’s World Series.
Dirtbag Camp is wrapping up for most ages this week, but middle schoolers will be taking the field for the first time next week. The camp ends on Aug. 9.