"St. Martin’s camp lends power to young baseball potential...13- to 16-year-olds get crash course in game’s fundamentals" -- July 20, 2006

By Caleb Breakey
Lacey Today (Weekly insert in The Olympian)

Bats, balls and gloves spot the finely trimmed grass between home plate and the third-base dugout at Saint Martin’s University’s baseball field.

A team of eight boys — wearing non-matching t-shirts or jerseys — crouch into ready positions while playing defense. Another group of young men strap batting gloves on, take a few practice swings and step to the plate against Jake Gamble, a sophomore baseball player for the Saint’s baseball team.

The 6-feet-2-inch right-hander winds up and delivers a slow, overhand pitch to one of the young batters, who swings and misses.

“Got him with the knuckleball,” Gamble shouts as he steps back onto the mound, proud of fooling the hitter. “Oh, nasty (pitch).”

Gamble and Saint’s head coach Joe Dominiak led this group of about 20 players through the Saint Martin’s Baseball Academy for 13- through 16-year-olds during a four-day baseball camp last week.

Dominiak said the camp focuses on building each player’s character and confidence — making them believe in their abilities.

“Attitude is the main portion of the game,” Dominiak said. “You can have the best skills as an athlete, but if you don’t have the attitude to go with it, you’re not going to make it. You can have a great attitude, and not as good skills, and that’s going to carry you farther.”

A typical day at camp includes several offensive and defensive drills in the morning, then lunch, followed by team defensive drills and an hour of scrimmage in the afternoon.

Michael Rosen, 13, said he usually just tries to make contact with the ball when he’s at the plate. However, the camp emphasized a different approach — “Think, every time I go up (to the plate), get a hit,” he said.

Paying attention and not trying to do things his own way was the key for Josh Aase, 13, who learned batting fundamentals such as stepping toward the mound when the pitcher is winding up.

Andrew Brown, 15, said the camp taught him to always stay positive, even after making an error.

Brown also picked up some batting tips.

“Loading — getting back on your back leg and driving through the ball,” he said. “It transfers more power through your swing.”

Sitting on a chair in front of the third-base dugout, his elbows resting on his knees, Dominiak told the players in the dugout that he keeps a file on them — a “recruiting log” that includes notes on each player.

Many of the players at camp won’t begin high school until fall 2006, so Dominiak shared tips on how to impress high school coaches and nail down a spot in a starting lineup.

“If you make the C team, you make the C team. If you make JV, you make JV. If you make varsity, congratulations. Whatever team you make, play the game hard,” he said. “Coaches will notice you.”

Saint’s junior pitcher Tip Wonhoff, a valedictorian scholarship winner, has a full-ride scholarship to Saint Martin’s University.

Dominiak used Wonhoff as an example while talking with the baseball camp players, relaying that just being an athlete doesn’t pay the bills — an education is needed.

“Roughly 30 grand a year is what he gets,” Dominiak said. “(Multiply) that by four, and it’s $120,000 worth of education. Besides being a pitcher, he gets to go to school here for free. That’s huge.”

The Saint’s team grade point average was 2.19 when Dominiak took over as head coach eight years ago. The teams’ grades have rocketed to a 3.22 GPA since then.

Dominiak said 1,500 players get drafted by major league teams each year, and that only 2 percent of those players reach the big leagues, “so if you don’t have your college degree or a GPA to get a degree, what are you going to fall back on?”

Keeping sharp throughout a game despite mental or physical errors is vital to the players’ success, Dominiak said.

“I explain to them that baseball is a defeating game,” he said. “There’s major league guys making millions of dollars in a game that they get beat. It’s a game of failure.”

Dominiak said players couldn’t take their batting frustrations onto the field because, somehow, the baseball is going to find them and cause an error.

“I told them, ‘You have a war inside your mind,’ ” Dominiak said. “If you make an error, (or) you strikeout, flush it out of your mind, don’t think about it and go back out and do your job.”

Brandon Pinch, 15, said the camp refreshes players’ minds about techniques and mechanics that sometimes go overlooked, such as the right way to throw off-speed pitches without causing an injury.

Pinch noted the improvement in his statistics in the past two seasons after attending the Saint’s baseball camp, and said he’ll be coming back next year.

“If you love the game of baseball, it’s perfect for you,” he said. “You can be the best player ever, but you still learn something. It makes you better.”