Camden still plays baseball for the love of the game
When Tom Hanson was a young boy in the early 1960s, he used to run around the baseball field in Farnham Park while his grandfather coached the Hatch Middle School team.
When Tom Hanson was a young boy in the early 1960s, he used to run around the baseball field in Farnham Park while his grandfather coached the Hatch Middle School team.
"The field was configured differently then," Hanson said, standing on the same patch of ground off Park Boulevard.
Lots of things have changed in the half-century since Tom Hanson used to attend the games directed by his grandfather, Ray Hanson, near the end of a teaching and coaching career that began in Camden in 1919.
Some things have stayed the same.
Tom Hanson still finds himself at a baseball field in Farnham Park on many spring afternoons, and players from a school just down the street in the Parkside section of the city still play the game with enthusiasm.
"We play for the love of the game," said Hanson, now the head coach of the Camden High School baseball team. "These kids, they just love to play."
The Panthers are one of the success stories of the citywide effort to keep baseball alive and well at the high school level.
With a 6-10 record, Camden just missed qualifying for the state tournament for the first time since the mid-1970s. The Panthers were edged out on residual points by Pennsauken Tech, which will play top-seeded West Deptford in the first round of the South Jersey Group 2 playoffs on Monday.
"I can't even believe it," Camden senior first baseman Jeff Espinal said of his team's improvement during his career. "When I started as a freshman, we had six players. We had to find three more to even have a team."
Across town, the varsity baseball team from LEAP Academy Charter is preparing for the South Jersey Group 1 tournament. The Lancers have fashioned the best season in the history of their program, with an 11-7 record.
"We broke the school record" for wins, said LEAP coach Ray Rossi, whose team will be the No. 13 seed and visit No. 4 seed Pitman. "This is definitely our best year ever."
Hope for the future
Victories have been in shorter supply for the programs at Woodrow Wilson and Camden Academy Charter, the two other high schools in the city that have baseball teams competing at the varsity level.
But both Woodrow Wilson coach Steve Murray and Camden Charter coach Ben White have high praise for the spirit showed by their athletes and high hopes for the future.
"We had mostly sophomores and freshmen starting," said White, whose team went 0-10 this season, the program's seventh. "Our [roster] numbers are good. We have 30-35 come out most years and we're able to have a [junior varsity] team.
"These kids, they love to play the game."
White said his team next season should be built around junior shortstop Luke Neco, the team's top player.
In his 17th year as the baseball coach at Woodrow Wilson, Murray has seen some "ups and downs" with the Tigers.
This season was tough, Murray said, with the program down to about 12 players after starting with about 18.
Led by junior shortstop Brian Arias, Woodrow Wilson went 3-11 this season, but one of the wins was over Camden in April.
"That was a good one," Murray said. "I always make sure to get a win like that on the announcements in the morning. The kids feel good about that."
One of Murray's challenges is the lack of a home field. The Tigers play all road games, and hold their practices on a softball field behind the high school on Federal Street in East Camden.
"That's like practicing basketball on an eight-foot rim and then going and playing a game on a 10-foot rim," Murray said. "But we deal with it. The kids love to play and we make the best of it."
LEAP Academy, on Cooper Street in the downtown section of the city, holds most of its practices on a field in North Camden.
The Lancers play mostly road games, but were the home team for five games in Campbell's Field, thanks to the cooperation of the Camden Improvement Authority, which oversees the facility.
"That was great for our kids and the visiting team," Rossi said.
LEAP's top players this season have included senior righthanded pitcher Luis Zabala and senior infielder Eddie Santos.
Zabala - whose fastball has been clocked at 86 mph, according to Rossi - struck out 20 in one game and 17 in another, the coach said.
Rossi had hoped to organize a tournament featuring the four city teams to be held in Campbell's Field this season but wasn't able to work out the logistics.
"We're definitely doing a tournament next year," Rossi said.
Camden has been led this season by Espinal, who has been recruited to play NCAA Division III baseball at the University of Valley Forge in Phoenixville, Pa., and sophomore shortstop Angel Baez.
Hanson said that Baez was batting .552 and Espinal was batting .547 through the early part of this past week.
One of Camden's losses was 14-4 to perennial power Bishop Eustace, whose veteran coach, Sam Tropiano, was impressed with Baez.
"Their shortstop is a sophomore and really good," Tropiano said.
Making progress
There's a vibrant baseball culture in Camden, with several youth programs and adult leagues as well. White said several of his players, now that Camden Charter's season is over, already were signed up to play for teams in North Camden through the summer.
But win-loss success has been elusive at the high school level.
"It's a lot of things," Hanson said. "A lot of these kids, they turn 16, they go out and get jobs to help out at home. It's a tough sport. You need practice time, you need to work on your skills, you need to develop the consistency."
Rossi said the city teams often lack equipment and facilities - such as indoor batting cages for practice in the cold weather - to compete with teams from wealthier communities.
"You give these kids equipment and facilities, and they're right there with anybody," Rossi said.
Hanson said he remembers the days when Camden and Woodrow Wilson both were powers in baseball.
Hanson, who was Camden's football coach from 2006 to 2008, retired from teaching in January 2013. Two months later, he got a call asking if wanted to take over the baseball program.
"They were down to two players," Hanson said. "They were thinking about shutting it down. I couldn't let that happen. Not to Camden High. Not with all the tradition we have here.
"We're getting there. It's slow, but we're making progress. We've got kids that love to play. We're just trying to keep baseball alive in the city."
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