Many of you are veterans yourself. Others have loved ones that have served or are serving to keep our nation free. We salute those in uniform, but they are not the only ones who should be remembered on this day. The courage shown by those early leaders who stood up to forge the blueprint that would separate us from British rule, the pioneers who headed west and expanded our boundaries from sea to shining sea and the ingenuity of those scientists and inventors whose findings catapulted this nation to greatness should all be thanked when we watch those fireworks and say ‘happy birthday Uncle Sam!’

July 4 is not only a milestone date on the calendar, it truly signals the beginning of those lazy, hazy days of summer. Schools are out, vacations are in vogue, the pace of society slows down a bit and the summer camp phenomenon breaks out in full force.

You name an activity associated with almost any kind of sporting event and somewhere, someone has a camp experience designed to make you shoot better, hit harder, run faster, throw farther, get stronger, etc. to excel in that activity of your interest. The camp frenzy is not limited to sports. There are science camps, scout camps, band camps, reading camps and an ongoing variety; just too many to mention.

Someone once reminded me that the definition of an expert is “someone from out-of-town.” The obvious reference is that someone from someplace else has to know more about the skill in question that anyone you might encounter walking down the street or in the grocery store of your hometown.

While the merits of that statement can be debated, the amount of money one spends to attend a camp does not guarantee a heightened skill level proficiency will be achieved. There are those camps whose advertising spouts big names on their brochures. Often that ‘big name’ will put in a 30-minute speaking engagement and then depart town, leaving the instructing to high school or college players.

Some camps are intended only for highly skilled athletes. Then there are team camps when the price of entry requires squads to perform through a maximum number of games in relatively short periods of time, operating under the theory that ‘you have to play to get better.’ Others are designed to allow those attending to just have fun.

One of those under the fun category occurred last week at Little League Baseball’s summer day camp. The camp has a two-fold purpose; allowing local kinds to have the opportunity to play at the LLB complex and give those instructors and counselors working the organization’s more structured sleep-over camp a chance to ‘work the bugs out of the system.’

Divided into ten teams, more than 100 Little League-aged youngsters took part in last week’s Day Camp. Their placement on teams was more determined by how they came through the registration line than by any skills they may possess. The only identifiable uniform were the caps they wore on their heads separated by a multitude of colors. The coaches mixed and matched their lineups at will, giving kids the chance to play positions of their choice. The umpiring might best be described, as ‘carefree’ and no one seemed to mind.

In attendance at one of the games, I watched as a right fielder for one of the teams was sitting leisurely on the grass as three or four pitches were tossed to the batter. Several teammates shouted out to the seated defender to “get up.” He paid them no mind. When the coach was made aware, he asked the player “what are you doing?” Without missing a beat, he began fidgeting with his shoelaces; “I’m tying my shoe coach,” he smartly responded. Smiles and giggles followed.

Many years back, I had the opportunity to serve as the Camp Director for Little League Baseball for a few years. At that time the Little League Summer Camp was comprised of four 13-day sessions. The campers would arrive on a Sunday and depart two Fridays later. The players were housed in the eight old cement block bunkhouses that surrounded the dining hall like a horseshoe.

Homesickness was enemy number one. Our staff spent the first few days trying to keep all the kids active and busy and away from the telephones, to keep those ‘Mom, I’m homesick calls’ to a minimum. If the kids could make it past the first few days things tended to go much more smoothly.

During one particular session one of the campers was extremely homesick. He moped around seemingly friendless, except for one player in another bunkhouse. When that youngster was around the homesick boy seemed much happier. In an attempt to solve the dilemma, I got the happy boy and the sad boy together and asked them if they would like to be in the same bunkhouse. They eagerly said they would like that

I made the necessary arrangements and went home that evening convinced I had solved the problem. Later the next day I got a call to come to the camp office. There stood both campers, suitcases by their side and sad looks on their faces. They were both going home. Seems in less than 24 hours the sad boy transferred his homesickness to the happy boy, rather than the other way around.

What’s that they say about the best-laid plans?

In the camping business you can never be sure.

Professional baseball teams start their season with a 0-0 record and if they had their druthers they would finish the season undefeated. For the Williamsport Crosscutters that would mean a last game in August that would leave them at 76-0 but we all know already that won't happen.†

In my Media Day talk with Cutter hitting coach Eric Valent, he expressed a high goal of getting the Cutters to recognize the fact that professional baseball is "an every day style of play. We want our players to come out every day and give it their very best shot at winning the game. Very few players at this level (Short season A ball) have had that day after day experience."

Valent, himself a rookie at coaching at the professional level, expressed a hitting philosophy that took the high road, especially when he noted he wants his players to "bat positive when they come to the plate. We must remember a .300 hitter is failing to hit safely 70% of the time. So it is most important they keep focused every time at bat. They can't allow themselves to dwell on their last time up but take each time as a chance to make a productive time at the plate."

Bill Bliss, the Cutter's pitching coach for the second straight season, carries a similar set of pitching plans. His rotation is based on starters and relievers with the starters chosen by the way they were evaluated by their work in pre-season training.

"The proof of their ability, of course, comes from what they are or will be doing here over the league season," was a comment he made on Media Day. "We have maybe three pitchers who came North we know have the tools to do a job here. Our job is to help them grow while finding other people on our staff we can move in as starters or in the key relief innings."†

Bliss added, "We feel we have stretched some of these pitchers out to where we can use a 100 pitch count level in opening the season."

That leaves the defense of the ball club and thus far, Williamsport has been holding its own in making the plays that come their way. It has to be obvious to each player to recognize the fact that they have to make the plays at their position plus do their job with a bat in hand to make their professional life last past where they are now.†

The 2007 Crosscutters had Dominic Brown as the only hitter to finish near .300. He closed at .295 and what counted for him, big time, was his late season maturity as evidenced by his .396 hitting in the the month of August. His season earned him a "look in" to the majors during spring training.†

At this writing the Cutters, and I realize the season is in its infancy, have hitters like Brandon Haislet (.353), Travis D'Arnaud (.313) Ryan Frew (.308) and Cody Overbeck (.306) up with the league leaders. Back up catcher and designated hitter Scott Thomas was hitting .412 in the five games in which he has played.

Robert Roth (2-0, 1.38 era) and Justin DeFratus (1-0, 0.68 era) are stepping out as lead pitchers, each with 13 innings pitched thus far. The important people are the other 12 hurlers on the current roster, people like Spencer Arroyo, Korey Noles, Freddy Ballestas, who need to make their move.

I would hope that a big step was taken last week when the Cutters put back to back 7-3 wins on the State College Spikes in their annual home and away series. In getting respect from their league opponents the ball club has to do all it can to come out of the standard three game series with at least a 2-1 game margin. They had dropped their first two opening series versus Mahoning Valley (1-2) and Jamestown (1-2) before winning a series for the first time by a 2-1 margin over State College. Of course, it would even be better to string some wins together as their season moves into July.

Manager Dusty Wathan, in his rookie season as a professional manager but with a wealth of minor league experience, is the responsible guy in directing the ball club He appears to have all the tools to make the summer a good baseball experience.

Scott Kennel, Lycoming's athletic director. has introduced Charles Guy Rancourt to the local media and the Warrior basketball program as the replacement for the departed Don Friday.†

Rancourt expressed great delight in becoming the new coach after the college had conducted a search when learning that Friday was moving to D-1 St. Francis.

Rancourt, a native of Queens, New York, is coming back north after spending the last two years in the D-1 Florida State University program. Prior to that he had spent three years with the Stoney Brook program as an assistant with major responsibilities in recruiting and basketball administration.†

His head coaching experience was while he was with John Jay College in New York for four years. He took their program from a two game a season winner to a 13 game winner in his first season. That earned him a Coach of The Year award from the City University of New York Athletic Conference (CUNYAC). He then led the program to a conference semifinal finish in 2000 and followed that with a share of the conference title the next year.

Rancourt will inherit all but two of the 2007-08 Commonwealth League champions who played to a 17-10 final record. That roster should include the likes of junior Eric Anthony (386 pts.) and senior Greg Sye (294 pts.)

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