As soon as sports lovers can feel that hint of spring in the air one of the first things they usually think of is baseball, America’s pastime. For many parents that means it’s time for Little League, and months of practices, games, and trips to the concession stand as well as keeping their preschool-aged children entertained for the hour and a half games. Last year a Ledyard couple abruptly broke that mold. When their 3-year-old asked why he couldn’t play, Michelle and Walter Lenz took it upon themselves to make sure he and his preschool classmates could.
“My husband and I have older boys who play for the Ledyard Youth League and last year we had a 3-year-old that wanted to play and you can’t find anything for kids to get started that young, they have to be 5,” Michelle explained. “He goes to preschool at Ledyard Center and so we said, you know what, let’s just see what the demand is and we’ll pass something out to the other kids at the preschool. If there’s other kids that want to play we’ll have our own team, so it kind of started out like that.”
After getting word that 11 other children were interested, the Lenzs created registration forms, signed all the liability waivers necessary, connected with Ledyard Parks and Recreation to see which fields would be available when, made up a schedule, and bought 12 tiny team jerseys. Thus the Yakcat Sluggers were born, a team of one dozen 3- to 5-year-olds who couldn’t wait the extra years before lacing up their first pair of cleats. The league was well supported by parents, the kids had fun, and so the Lenzs decided to do it all over again this year. Little did they know what kind of a response they’d get as the team doubled in size, going from 12 to 24 in one year with the majority of the group being 4-year-olds.
“It’s a lot more work than it was last year,” Michelle said, laughing. “If it continues like this next year we’re going to have to consider talking with the Ledyard Youth League to see if we can get some more coaches because it’s turning out to be a really popular and good thing.”
This season the Lenzs have recruited some additional parent volunteers to help out and have split the team in two. Donning two different colored Yakcat Sluggers jerseys, the team practices on Wednesday evenings and plays their games on Saturday mornings. Michelle said they focus on the basics—batting, catching, running the bases, and safety—in a fun and entertaining way. Utilizing four stations during practice, each player gets a few turns to bat, to practice catching, to complete the obstacle course and to work on their accuracy at the bucket toss. Michelle explained how keeping it simple and fun is the key.
“It’s very basic but it’s amazing what they learn,” she said. “We noticed this last year when it basically was just supposed to be for fun for them to belong to a team and be with other kids their age and still feel like they’re playing baseball, but they learned so much last year, we were amazed at the end of the year how much they had learned. They all knew to run to first after they batted, where to stand when they’re hitting and how to hold the bat. It was really gratifying to see these little guys have so much fun, but really learn a lot of the basics at the same time.”