Mike Hammond set a high bar for the players with Brookfield Youth Baseball and Softball Inc.
“This is the best entertainment you’ll get the rest of your life,” Hammond, a disc jockey who announced the teams and players at the league’s April 21 opening day, told the hundreds in attendance.
“I love it,” said Hammond, who has coached baseball and basketball, of opening day. “I wish they’d do it once a week. There’s nothing like this age level.”
The league, which plays at Brookfield Township Community Park, has 19 teams with ages ranging from those six and under who play T ball up to 15, said league board member Dave DeJoy.
Kathy Reed of West Middlesex came to wish well her grandson, fourth-grader Brayden Reed.
“I think it’s awesome,” she said of opening day, which included exhibition games by league teams, a real game by the Brookfield High School softball team, and the opening of the concession stand.
“We have been supporting the Brookfield Warriors for a lot of years,” said Reed, as parents and grandparents gathered by the Field 2 fence to get photographs of teams. “We think this is just the nicest community. This is a real sense of community here. Look at all the parents and the grandparents. We have some of the nicest friends here.”
DeJoy said the league had a great turnout for opening day, even though a few parents were huddled in the bleachers with blankets wrapped around them.
“We think it’s something special for them (players),” DeJoy said. “Families get excited to see them. It’s something we look forward to every year.”
League games started the following week and will continue at least to July 4, with some teams playing in tournaments a little later.
“As long as the weather cooperates, there’ll games going on, on three or four of the fields every night except Sunday,” DeJoy said.
For more photos, see NEWS On the Green’s April 24 post.
