Travelers bring free skills clinic to Majestic Park
The Arkansas Travelers Youth Foundation hosted a free skills clinic for ages 4-14 on Saturday morning.
The clinic helped children in four areas of baseball: fielding, throwing, hitting, and base running.
Participants were split into four age groups and sent to each of the stations and rotated through. There were three players from the Arkansas Travelers — the Double-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners — at the event to help children learn how to do the drills and develop their skills.
“I’m just having fun, giving back to the kids,” Travelers catcher Harry Ford said. “Let them have a good time and let them learn a little something while they’re at it. Just enjoying my time with them.”
The National Park College Nighthawks also brought seven players and head coach Rich Thompson, a former Traveler himself, helped oversee the festivities. Thompson helped set the camp up with Arkansas Travelers Youth Foundation Executive Director Lance Restum.
“Lance called me, and as a former Traveler years ago, I’ve known Lance for a long time,” Thompson said. “It’s an exciting thing that we can bring a youth camp here, free to the kids. Teach them a little about baseball and give something back to the community.”
Restum, who is also the Travelers’ in-game emcee, talked about why such events are important for the youth.
“Events like this are important to build baseball and build the future of baseball,” he said. “Major League Baseball attendance is falling. People have a lot of things that distract them nowadays. You’ve got screen
time, you’ve got childhood obesity, childhood diabetes. There’s a lot of things that are battling against our youth.”
He also discussed how money has become a big issue in sports, especially in baseball.
“We were founded in 2001 with the explicit purpose of breaking down economic barriers to sports,” Restum said. “The biggest barrier in baseball and softball is economics. It’s just expensive; hundreds of dollars for bats, thousands of dollars for lessons and clinics. Parents now are priced out of the game. A lot of kids, a lot of families, a lot of single-parent households in our community can’t afford to participate like they used to. So our goal is to host these free clinics which gives these kids opportunities to meet professional baseball players, learn skills and drills from professional baseball players, and kind of fall in love with baseball.”
Along with the clinic and getting to meet a few professional and college baseball players, the families who attended the camp received tickets to an Arkansas Travelers game, ice cream from Andy’s Frozen Custard, and a souvenir from Academy Sports and Outdoors.
Saturday marked the first of two clinics this year, which attracted nearly double the attendance of last year’s, with over 200 children registered.
“I’ve got seven guys out here,” Thompson said. “They’re like herding cats right now, which is always fun. A lot of kids here which is really good. I probably should’ve brought 10 more players. It’s a great turnout and great weather.”
Thompson also talked about his job at the event and why the events are important for him and his players, as well as the impact they have on the community.
“I’m trying to herd my guys and the cats,” Thompson said. “It’s always good to give back to the community and teach the kids some baseball. It’s given us a lot. It’s given these guys an opportunity to play baseball and get an education so maybe they can pass that on to the next generation.”
The clinics help instill passion in young baseball players and teach them to enjoy sports, which are a big part of the community. A lot of professional athletes look back at such clinics as being impactful for them, such as Ford.
“I just want to help them,” he said. “I want to let them have a good time. A lot of people did that for me when I was younger, so I take any chance I get to help the kids.”