On Feb. 26, Montera student athletes came to the newly renovated field to show off their skills, attempting to make the prestigious Montera Baseball Team.
With returning players showing up to claim their spots in the lineup, very few spots are left on the team. Coaches Fernando and Santo Domingo will be coaching this year, hoping for another successful season.
27 middle schoolers showed up to tryouts. Almost everybody seemed “rusty” due to a lack of practice. Some athletes have not played any sort of baseball in the last couple of months resulting in some errors and mess-ups.
Tuesday tryouts were very defense-heavy, with all fielding drills and zero offensive stations. The tryout started with everybody stretching and getting loose. Throwing soon followed with players pairing up and slowly getting further away from each other as they threw. After throwing, the coaches organized an infield drill where players would line up at different infield positions, take ground balls.
This season, Montera is hoping for another successful year with team spirit, improvement, and lots of wins. With most players looking solid in all aspects of their game, we are hopeful. Highlights include solid fielding, but most excitingly, hitting. 8th grader Mako Wolf, had the farthest hit ball, blasting one to the far Montera fence, with an estimated range of 420 feet. Other players had some very hard hit balls but none came near Wolf’s. Montera had some very strong arms on the field, for example, Deshawn Flake, who showed lots of velocity on his throws, and everyone showed decently good fielding work.
All players from last year’s season automatically got on the team. This leaves very limited spots left for new coming players. There are roughly 4 open spots for new coming players hoping to get on the team, really putting the pressure on players to show their best.
A message to all the players hoping to secure their spot on the Montera Baseball team: the coaches look for talent, of course, but what they really admire is a good attitude and being “coachable.” When talking to the team about tryouts, Coach Fernando said “Yeah, skill is great, but if you really want to get on the team, attitude and coachability is key.” “Coachability” is the ability to be coachable and have an open mind toward learning and coaching.
Just in time for the new season, The Montera baseball field got redone. The North Oakland – South Oakland regional little league teams who also use the Montera field recently redid the batting cages, taking out literal pounds of ivy and weeds, tying up the net, and re-making the pitchers mound, putting in a lot of work to make the field great again.
The field will be used not only by the Montera baseball team to practice, but by Intermediates Little League Organization for games. The intermediates level uses the dimensions that the Montera field has to offer – 70 foot bases, 54 foot pitchers mound. The Intermediate Level of Little League has four teams who have games on the weekends and practices during the week so the field renovation is huge, not only for Montera but for Oakland youth baseball.