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Category: Club News
SAM DEMPSTER ELECTED TO THE WHITBY SPORTS HALL OF FAME
MLB Envoy Sam Dempster, will be an inductee to the Whitby Sports Hall of Fame in Canada on April 24. Over the years the members of Herts Baseball Club, young and old, have had the privilege to work with Coach Dempster and he has become a part of the Herts Baseball Family. Herts is in a very good position to know exactly why Sam Dempster is being elected to the Whitby Sports Hall of Fame.
Herts Baseball Club congratulates Coach Dempster and is grateful for his incredible contribution to the club’s growth and success.
The following article was first published on www.britishbaseball.com
MLB Envoy Coach Sam Dempster has been coming to the UK as a Major League Baseball Envoy since the summer of 2004, and after each summer spent teaching the British baseball community the “Dempster” way of doing things, Sam has returned to Canada to resume as Head Baseball Coach at Durham College in Ontario.
But on April 24, Coach Dempster will receive a signal honour: induction to the Whitby Sports Hall of Fame at the college.
Deserving Candidate
“Sam is truly deserving of this honour,” said Ken Babcock, Durham College Athletic Director. “His involvement with baseball on many different levels for the past 30 years is extraordinary. From youth minor ball, to his key role in the birth of high school baseball in the Durham Region, to his stellar career as head coach of the Durham College varsity baseball programme to his work as a Major League Baseball scout and also worldwide ambassador for Major League Baseball’s International Envoy programme, Sam has impacted thousands world wide. I can’t say enough about Sam Dempster as a person. He is simply one of the special ones.”
BSUK Regional Coach and GB Cadet Head Coach Will Lintern said, “The ‘Dempster Way’ can best be summarised by the quote he often puts at the end of his emails: ‘If you want to leave footprints in the sand, wear work boots’. Sam Dempster has been an absolute work horse, travelling the length and breadth of the UK to coach kids and adults of all abilities. Many clubs have benefited from the experience and knowledge that Sam has imparted on the baseball field, but no group of players have learned more about the game of baseball than those who have played on the Great Britain Cadet National Team.”
Since Will Lintern became Cadet Head Coach in 2008, Sam Dempster has been one of the team’s assistant coaches at two European Qualifier Tournaments where GB placed second and fifth and has instructed at numerous Cadet camps and practices.
In Canada, Sam Dempster has been the only coach that the Durham College men’s baseball programme has ever known. For the last 18 seasons as Head Coach of the Lords, Dempster has been instrumental in guiding the programme to its current level of excellence.
The team has only had one losing season in those 18 years, and since 1995, the team has qualified for the Ontario Championship finals in all but one year, while Dempster has gone on to compile an impressive overall record of 257-177 and a conference record of 169-108.
The Lords have won the CIBA Ontario Conference championship five times, including four straight wins from 2005 to 2008. Durham’s first conference championship came in 1999.
MLB Award
In January of 2007, Sam Dempster was awarded the Julio Puente Envoy International Coach Award by Major League Baseball at the American Baseball Coaches Association Conference in Orlando, Florida. The prestigious award is presented by MLB for unselfish, dedicated and passionate work in growing the game of baseball.
In addition to his lead role at Durham and his summer work in the UK, Coach Dempster is also an associate Canadian scout for Major League Baseball’s Milwaukee Brewers and was previously a scout for the New York Yankees. He has also co-organised the Ontario Best Ever Clinic for many years and has assisted the Team Ontario programme both north and south of the border.
Back to Britain
This summer, Sam Dempster will return to his role as an assistant role with the GB Cadet National Baseball Team, helping to deliver an enhanced regional practice schedule. The plan is for Sam to run one regional practice in the North and one in the South each week for both the Junior and Cadet teams ahead of their respective European Qualifying tournaments.
Will Lintern said: “Having Sam on the coaching staff is not only a great asset, because I know he will push both the players and the other coaches to excellence, but it also a tremendous privilege and honour to work with a coach of his calibre.”
RECORD-BREAKING YEAR FOR THE HERTS SPRING LEAGUE
Article by Rob Jones
The biggest pre-season baseball tournament in Britain is back, and this year it is even bigger and better than ever. The Herts Spring league will see a record 17 teams travel from as far afield as Leicester and Southampton to hone their skills and compete for the title. Organised by the Herts Baseball Club, it’s Britain’s very own version of the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues currently under way in the US, and it signals that the season is just around the corner.
Herts Baseball Club President Aspi Dimitrov was delighted by the surge in interest: “Every year we have had more teams wanting to play in the HSL. It’s fantastic to have another big jump in the numbers, and I think it’s going to be a great competition.“ He added: “We are also pleased to confirm that BarrysTickets.com have continued their association with Herts Baseball Club and have just been confirmed as the Official Sponsor of the 2010 Herts Spring League. The financial contribution which they are making will be used to improve and maintain facilities at Herts Baseball Club so that all teams coming to play at Herts can benefit.”
Last year’s winners Bracknell will be returning to defend their crown, led by their star slugger Ryan Trask. In 2009, their victory in the HSL was a springboard to taking the National League title, and top teams this year will be hoping to emulate that feat. Bracknell’s opening HSL game is a mouth-watering clash with the Richmond Flames in a repeat of the 2009 National Baseball Championship Final. Ryan Bird’s Richmond Flames will be battling them hard and the host team, the Herts Falcons, will count on flame-throwing Dan Kerry (pictured) to keep the offenses in check. The big guns will be joined by teams from all levels of the British game, including the current AA Champions, the Mildenhall Bulldogs, and the reigning masters of the British Single-A League, the Leicester Blue Sox.
The action will be spread across three weekends – starting on Saturday, 27 March and ending on Sunday, 11 April – and at two excellent venues, Grovehill ballpark in Hemel Hempstead, and Ham Ground in Richmond. The clubs will be split into two groups, HSL Majors and HSL Minors, based on the team rankings going in to the new season – NBL and AAA teams will be joined by the expansion team the Essex Redbacks in the Majors; the AA and A teams will make up the Minors. The winners of two mini-leagues will then go head to head for the Championships.
The Herts Spring League adds a competitive edge to Spring training. It’s the time for managers to work out their winning formula going into the BBF league season. It is an opportunity to evaluate existing and newly recruited players – which players will earn a spot in the pitching rotation and who will be batting where in the batting order? Who will make the first team and who will have to work their way up with the minor league teams? Not forgetting, it’s a chance to size up your rivals for the year ahead. It’s the first big challenge and the first big excitement of the baseball year. Don’t miss it.
Visit the official HSL website for more details.
FIELDS OF DREAMS
For the average person, pulling on a baseball glove or clubbing a home run would be an exciting novelty. So, for those us who get that thrill regularly, what novelty provokes similar excitement? The answer, it seems, is a mini-digger and a dumper truck. On a bright Spring Saturday, some of the finest talent that Herts Baseball Club has to offer turned out to help prepare our brand new field, and touch up our existing diamond for the season ahead. 
They could barely contain their glee at two life-size Tonka toys to play with. One of them told me that when the call for volunteer drivers went out, his hand had never gone up so quickly. But this was not just about sandpit play on a grand scale. This was serious work. The machines were there to dig out the areas around the three bases, home plate, and the pitchers' mound on the new field, so that several enormous piles of sand and gravel could be poured in. Marty Cullen, Lee Manning and Dave Westfallen took turns at the controls, taking strides towards turning one small patch of Hemel Hempsted from plain old grass, to a magical baseball diamond. The germ of the idea was planted years ago; the turf was laid last autumn in a blaze of wet weather glory; and in just a matter of weeks, it should be hosting Herts games. The second field will give the club the room it needs to run four adult teams, as well as a burgeoning Little League project, throughout 2010 and for many years to come.
Over on the original field, the work was less dramatic but no less important. The grass had to be edged neatly, the new Redgra spread evenly, and the mound repaired lovingly, so that it can remain a Hertfordshire landmark. Baseball fields are rare enough in the UK — a field with a full, cut-out infield is even more rare, and with a bit of maintenance it can be a thing of beauty. So Greg Bochan, Mark Hoffman and Phil Hynes were among those who helped it become reality. They used the more mundane tools of shovel and wheelbarrow to five the field a facelift. In the course of the day, more than two dozen baseball stars put in their time as volunteer groundsmen. This has been the scene of many Herts triumphs — let's hope it can be even better looking when the next triumph comes around.
HERTS BASEBALL AWARDED £500 GRANT FOR COACH EDUCATION
Herts Baseball Club has been awarded a £500 coach education grant by the Hertfordshire Community Foundation. This is the first funding secured by the club for the purposes of training new Herts coaches.
The award will pay for a two-day Level 1 coach education course run by BaseballSoftballUK (BSUK), the national development agency for British baseball. The Foundation grant will enable eight club members to attend the training programme, undertake a practical assessment and, if successful, earn their entry-level national coaching certification as “Assistant Baseball Coaches”.
Five of the Herts candidates will work directly with the Herts Little League. David Baird, Carlos Casal, Tim Elkins, Matt Johnston and Marc Martinez will form a significant portion of the 2010 coaching staff for the Herts youth programme. They will instruct Little League practices, manage and assistant manage squads on game days, and spend time coaching in local area schools and helping the club to build rapport with other youth sport outlets.
The other three Herts attendees are coaches in the adult programme. Andy Cornish (2009 Hitting Coach) will be joined by newly-elected managers Chris Barnes (AAA Eagles) and Kennet Pike (A Raptors).
Herts Baseball Club is hosting the BSUK-taught course at a local school on Saturday 13 and Saturday 27 February. Part of the £500 in HCF monies will pay for the venue hire costs, while the rest will cover the course attendance fees for all eight coaches.
In a related development, the Herts adult and youth programme directors have also been awarded coach education bursaries for 2010. Marty Cullen (Herts Little League Commissioner) and Jason Greenberg (Manager of the National League Falcons) are both completing a Level 3 baseball coach candidacy this spring. Cullen has been tendered £150 by the Dacorum Community Trust toward his course fees, while Greenberg has received £135 from the CCPR-endorsed Torch Trophy Trust. Level 3 is the highest tier of formal UK baseball training with course modules and assessments covering every aspect of the sport and spread out over six months' time; the Level 3 course fees total £275 per candidate.
“Herts Baseball Club would like to extend sincere gratitude to the Hertfordshire Community Foundation, the Dacorum Community Trust and the Torch Trophy Trust for their generous support,” said Greenberg. “Since 2008, Herts Baseball has seen unprecedented growth as the Little League has expanded to include more than 100 children and the adult programme has more than doubled in size, now with a team in each league of the British Baseball Federation. Coach education is a major goal for our club in 2010, and these grants allow ten coaches to expand their credentials and knowledge base at very little personal expense. It is – in a word – fantastic.”
The increased number of certified coaches should allow Herts Baseball Club to finalise their ClubMark accreditation, unlocking further opportunities to fundraise and recruit new players.
Hertfordshire Community Foundation exists to tackle deprivation in Hertfordshire and beyond. It is currently the largest non-statutory grant 
giver into the county and in the last year (2008/09) has awarded more than £1 million in grants to charities and community groups. The HCF £500 fund was part of the Comic Relief scheme, which endeavours to enable local people to create lasting change in their communities.
The Dacorum Community Trust is a charity dedicated to helping those most in need within the Dacorum area, by managing and distributing money it 
raises locally from individuals, companies and organisations. The Trust was officially launched in 1976. It was one of the first Community Trusts to be set up giving advice and support to other Community Trusts who have been set up all over the country.
The Torch Trophy Trust has its origins in the 1948 Olympics held in London. Before every Olympic Games a torch relay is organised from Athens to the Host City. 
Following the 1948 Games, the Torch designed for the last leg of the Relay into Wembley Stadium was presented to the Trust. TTT provides small Bursaries to assist volunteers in sport and presents Awards to individuals who have been identified as making an outstanding contribution as a volunteer in their chosen sport.
BASEBALL TEAMS GEAR UP FOR HERTS SPRING LEAGUE
Fans of Major League Baseball suffer over the long winter season but with Spring just around the corner everyone is getting an uplifting feeling that the start of the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues will signal the return of baseball. British Baseball is no different and over the last three years teams in Southern England have had their very own Grapefruit League to look forward to.
Organised by Herts Baseball Club, the Herts Spring League (HSL) adds a competitive edge to Spring training. The HSL is the time for managers to work out their winning formula going into the BBF league season. It is an opportunity to evaluate existing and newly recruited players. Which players will earn a spot in the pitching rotation and who will be batting where in the batting order? Who will make the first team and who will have to work their way up with the minor league teams? Not forgetting scouting your opponents. These are just some of the questions which will have to be answered during the upcoming HSL.
This is the third year of the competition and it is expected to be the best yet. In the first year of the HSL in 2008 ten teams took part. In 2009 due to overwhelming demand, the league had to expand. 13 teams played 21 games over three weekends at three different venues – Grovehill Ballpark in Herts, Ham Ground in Richmond and the £100,000 purpose-built baseball facility in Harlow. In fact demand was so high that two other teams had to be turned away as there simply were not enough fields to stage all the games.
The 2010 HSL will be played over three weekends commencing on Saturday, 27 March and ending on Sunday, 11 April. Teams will be placed in two divisions, HSL Majors and HSL Minors, based on the teams’ ranking going into the new season. HSL Majors is expected to include BBF teams from the National and AAA Leagues, while HSL Minors is expected to include BBF teams from AA and Single-A.
Last year the HSL Champions were the Bracknell Blazers and they went on to become the 2009 British National Baseball League Champions, so the more superstitious teams in the league will have an extra incentive to win the HSL this time around.
DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES TO THE HSL: Monday 15 February 2010.
Teams are currently submitting their entries for this year’s Herts Spring League. For more details on how to enter and a copy of the 2010 HSL Pack contact Herts Baseball Club.
THE SNOW IS GONE. HERTS BASEBALL PLAYERS REPORT FOR SPRING TRAINING
This Sunday, the Herts adult teams reported for training for the first time in 2010. Over the next nine weeks the players will be going through the process of regaining their physical fitness, restoring their arm strength and conditioning their bodies. Every imaginable aspect of baseball will be covered to get the players ready for fielding, hitting, pitching, base-running and performing at their optimum level in their respective positions.
After this, the teams will play their first games of the year in the Herts Spring League (HSL), which is the British equivalent of the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues in America. The HSL is played over three weekends starting on 27 March and ending on 11 April. This is the last chance for the British Baseball teams to fine-tune their game plans before the 2010 British Baseball League season commences.
Spring Training always brings the excitement of meeting the new players who will be wearing the Herts jersey in the coming season and it was pleasing to see that around twenty five percent of the players in this first training session of the new season were newly recruited members, so even at this early stage it seems as though Herts will have strength in depth going into the 2010 season.
New players are able to join Herts Baseball Club at any time. The Club welcomes new players regardless of their baseball abilities and experience – from complete beginners to experienced ball players. Male and female players aged 14 or above are eligible to play in the British Adult Baseball League, while boys and girls aged between 5 and 16 have the opportunity to join the Herts youth programme and play as part of the exciting Herts Baseball Little League. For more details contact Herts Baseball Club.
This Sunday’s session was held at the John F Kennedy School in Hemel Hempstead and, as soon as the weather becomes suitable, the players will be returning to Grovehill Ballpark, which has undergone significant developments since the end of the 2009 season, including the resurfacing of the second diamond and the installation of the backstop (pictured above). These projects were made possible thanks to the support of Dacorum Borough Council, the Dacorum Sports Network, BaseballSoftballUK (BSUK), as well as other supporters of the club, including its many youth and adult members.
Click here for more images from Grovehill Ballpark.
BRITAIN’S TOP BASEBALL LEAGUE TO EXPAND IN 2010
TV Presenter, Jerry Springer (centre), paid several visits to see Essex Arrows games in 2009, including making an appearance as an umpire. In 2010 he will be able to follow their progress in the National Baseball League.
Competition will be increasing for the Herts Falcons in the National Baseball League (NBL) in 2010. The British Baseball Federation (BBF) has just announced the expansion of the league from 5 to, effectively, 12 teams with 3 new teams joining the NBL South and 4 Northern teams forming the NBL North. Apart from trips to Southampton and Cambridgeshire, the Falcons can look forward to renewing their rivalry with neighbours Essex Arrows.
The following is the full press release issued by the BBF earlier this afternoon:
BRITAIN'S TOP BASEBALL LEAGUE TO EXPAND IN 2010
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VIDEO: INTERVIEW WITH ASPI DIMITROV
In our final interview in the series, Marty Cullen chats with Club President, Aspi Dimitrov. This is the last interview of 2009, but be ready for coverage of the 2010 season right here on the Herts Baseball Newswire and Herts Baseball TV.
VIDEO: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH ANDY CORNISH
Herts Baseball TV brings you exclusive interviews from the 2009 Herts Baseball Awards Night. Today, Marty Cullen talks to Andy Cornish with Herts Baseball fans hoping to see him back to full fitness in 2010. Tune in on Wednesday for the final Marty Cullen interview of 2009.