Reynolds Youth Baseball – What to Expect

 The Season. The JBO regular season does not start until mid-April, and it goes until the beginning of July. If the team makes the post season, the post-season tournaments are in mid-July. Your coaches will know post-season tournament dates before the season starts – if your player will not be available to play in the post season, please let RYB know as soon as possible.

 Coaches. We expect to have new managers this season. We are committed to finding the best coaches that we can! If you are interested in coaching or know a great coach who would be interested, please let us know.

Fundraising. Last season our players were able to participate in the high school baseball program’s fundraiser. The fundraiser involved selling coupon cards for about one week. This one week of fundraising can pay for each team to play in tournaments, and help cover the costs of paid umpires, insurance, hats, uniforms, and so on. It allows the youth players to sell on teams with the high school players and coaches. Many players earned prizes for sales – including a DeMarini bat, Oakley sunglasses, t-shirts, pullovers, etc. (It was fun, and it helped us keep registration fees low!) There may be additional fundraisers such as Abby's Pizza night, etc.

Travel on Game Days. Half of the games are at home (RMS); half are throughout the metro area (and sometimes beyond). All games are either on Mondays and Wednesdays, or on Tuesdays and Thursdays, depending on which level your team is in. All games start at 6:00 p.m. Because we share the fields with the high school, we do sometimes get bumped when the high school has rainouts to make up. We ask that everyone be as patient and flexible as possible!

Competition. We play regular season games against teams from Hood River to Tualatin to Silverton (those were the furthest games). Many of the teams RYB faces are the players and teams they will face in high school, including Barlow, Gresham, Clackamas, Oregon City, CYO (future Central Catholic players), etc. With tournaments teams will play close to 40 games.

Level of Play. We are currently playing JBO - Senior Division (13-14 year olds/7th-8th graders). JBO has three levels of competition: Federal (highest skills), American (good skills), National (developing). The goal is to have teams of a certain skill level improve by playing against other teams of comparable skill level.

Tournaments. We hope to raise enough money for each team to register for four tournaments (not including playoffs), most with 4 game guarantees. The tournaments take place on weekends throughout the season.

Preparing for High School. The main goal of our program is to prepare Reynolds players for high school baseball. We play all games and practice on the high school field, and we follow high school rules with some modification. Coach Swoboda will spend time helping to train the RYB coaches so players will better assimilate to the high school program when they get there. (Please note – this does not mean that the high school coaching staff will be attending youth practices or games – their first priority is taking care of the high school program!)

If you have any questions regarding the program, or are interested in volunteering for the program in any capacity, please contact Coach Swobodoa or Joanna Aufmuth: http://www.leaguelineup.com/reynoldsyouthbaseball

then go to "Contact Info."

THANK YOU!