Blue Jackets baseball returns to action

Young but talented

After a two-year hiatus due to dwindling numbers, Blue Jackets Babe Ruth baseball (ages 13-15) is back for the 2014 season. Vann Taylor returns as the head coach and Mikey Weil is stepping in this season as assistant coach.
Taylor comes from an extensive career in baseball, reaching his pinnacle in high school at a 6A school in Oklahoma. He went on from there to play junior college ball and closed out his career pitching college baseball in Kansas City. In 2011 Taylor decided it was time to share what he learned with the local kids and stepped into the head-coaching role for the Blue Jackets.
Weil has worked with this group of kids since T-ball, moving up with them through coach pitch and into Little League for the past nine years and looks to keep the momentum rolling.
“The team I’ve coached made the championship every year,” says Weil of the Little League run. “They’ve been right in the mix but we’re stepping onto a bigger stage now.”
While Little League baseball diamonds have 60-foot base paths, Babe Ruth fields stretch it 30 feet longer, for a 90-foot base path. As a result, when the team started workouts inside at the end of March and into April, the coaches focused on bringing the kids up to speed with the larger diamond, as well as a sign system that Taylor has in mind.
“A lot of the work in the gym was on arm strength,” says Weil. “Throwing, a lot of stretching, and Vann has a high-end intricate sign system so from day one we started working on signs.”
While kids tend to come and go during the initial workouts, Weil believes they have 12 committed baseball players now for the season, with hints of a couple more joining the team once the second home owners hit town.
“I think it’s great. If we had fewer than 12 it would be tough,” says Weill.
The Blue Jackets managed to get outside for one workout a week in Gunnison starting at the end of April and are now putting in two and a half to three hour sessions, three days a week, on Tommy V Field.
“The kids are getting in long practices. We’re trying to play catch up,” says Weil.
After giving each kid a shot at pitching, Weil and Taylor have pared the potential pitcher list down to six. In addition, Weil believes they have two catchers to work with and they’ve spent significant time on hitting fundamentals.
“We do a lot of hitting off the T, soft toss, sacrifice bunts, developing the inside outside swing and footwork,” explains Weil. “That’s going to translate once we start live pitch, which we’ll start moving into this week.”
Weil admits that the season could start out rough for the Blue Jackets when they start league play next week. Not only have they been limited in workouts, but also the team is on the younger end of the 13 to 15-year-old age bracket.
“Out of our 12 kids, I think only two played Babe Ruth last year for Gunnison,” says Weil. “We’re going to get lit up early. But I think these kids are so athletic and we got a core group that is committed that I really believe they’re going to be fine.”
The Blue Jackets will have their first league game on Wednesday, May 28 in Gunnison at 5:30 p.m. They’ll spend the following weekend in Hotchkiss and should host their home opener at Tommy V Field on Wednesday, June 4.
“We got a good group of kids,” says Weil. “It’s going to be interesting to see, it’s going to be interesting to coach.”