With the excitement of the MLB’s opening games, will the Faith Lutheran Middle School boys baseball teams carry the same enthusiasm? Faith has two middle school baseball teams: an “A” club team and a “B” conference team. Between these two teams, the season should be full of hot dogs, popcorn, and lots of “dingers”(home runs.)

Faith has two middle school baseball teams. The boys “A” U14 team plays in the BPA club league, and the “B” team will play in the Red Rock Athletic Conference. Mr. James Hidalgo coaches the “A” team, and Mr. Buck Crosby coaches the “B” team.

The seventh grade “A” baseball team does not play the other schools around the Las Vegas area. They play Majestic, Rebels, Wildcats prep, and many more in the BPA league. The “B” team plays teams including Calvary Chapel, Meadows, Mountain View, Alamo, and MVCS. Players on the two teams hope to have a great season and play their hearts out in every game, scrimmage, and practice.

Seventh grader Nate Ross, plays on the “A” baseball team. Ross has played baseball since he was three years old and loves third base and pitcher. The hardest thing for Ross to learn was the mental part of baseball.

“I like playing pitcher because it makes me feel like I’m in control of the game. I love hitting because it’s fun, and I enjoy hitting dingers,” said Ross.

Ross first started out with many sports. His dad wanted to try everything and see what he was best at and liked the most. He tried many different sports, and Ross enjoyed them all, but one thing he liked best includes throwing and hitting. His dad thought he could become a great baseball player by the way he hit things with a bat. Now, Ross plays baseball for Faith and loves hitting. Ross looks up to Adam Jones, a baseball player on the Baltimore Orioles, who happens to play on his favorite team.

“One of the players that inspires me is Jackie Robinson because he taught me that risk taking is okay to do and to not be afraid of other people or players and turn to the other cheek,” said seventh grader Canyon Kutch.

Another seventh grade baseball player Canyon Kutch, plays on the “B” team and has played baseball for 10 years. His favorite thing about baseball is having fun and getting a good pitch to drive out of the park. Kutch has made a couple of goals for himself this season. His goals include getting a lot of extra base hits, being faster around the base path, locking up the shortstop position, and too be a leader on and off the baseball field.

“B” team coach Buck Crosby, hopes to have a great season with Faith.

“I have coached baseball for about seven years, sixth of them at Faith and for the last five as the head coach of the middle school B Team. Before that I was an assistant girls high school softball coach for both JV and varsity,” said Crosby.

The “B” team has made goals to play Faith baseball, have fun and hopefully end up in first place at the end of the season. Their first game, against Adelson, they won 8-7. Crosby’s expectations for the team are to have fun, play hard and try to win every game. Last year Crosby coached two middle school teams at Faith, the Red Rock League team and the 13u BPA team.

The baseball term, “dinger” refers to a home run. Many baseball players use this word very often. A “dinger” basically is when someone hits a home run. This word has a major effect on most baseball players because all they want to do is hit dingers.

“In baseball, I try to hit as many dingers as I possibly can. It is a fun word to say and it gets catchy so I say it a lot,” said Ross. “Kent Murphy, a baseball viner, makes a lot of funny videos about hitting dingers, and he’s really funny and I enjoy watching his videos.”

For the pdf version of this story please click here-Baseball Story