Summer. The season of relaxing, visiting your favorite beach or lake and taking a brief break from the grind of the spring semester. For Elon University baseball players, the grind of the spring semester meant a 64-game college baseball season. Playing 64 games in less than four months is taxing, but several Elon players are continuing their season through college summer baseball.
“Summer ball” consists of more than 20 leagues throughout the country playing minor league-style baseball with rosters filled entirely by current college players. Collegiate summer leagues mirror professional baseball by using wooden bats as opposed to the metal composite bats used during the NCAA season. The players, as amateurs, are not paid, but they gain valuable experience and improve their skills in a game environment.
The process of placing players on summer teams begins the previous fall.
“Our assistants, Coach [Robbie] Hufftstetler mainly, spend a ton of time on the phone with coaches and selling our players,” said Mike Kennedy, Elon baseball's head coach. “We try and find a match, what our guy needs and what that [summer ball] program needs.”
Kennedy also said he and his staff place players with the intent of earning playing time at a consistent level, sometimes more than during the collegiate season.
“We want them to go play and get at-bats,” Kennedy said. “It’s a lot of feeling out process in terms of what we’re looking for.”
[quote]It’s given me a confidence going into next fall. I feel like I can be a help to the team. -- Blaine Bower, junior, on the advantages of playing summer baseball[/quote]
One of these players is rising junior outfielder Blaine Bower, who played in 52 games with 29 starts last spring for the Phoenix. After the season, Bower traveled to Alexandria, Va., where he has put together an all-star season with the Alexandria Aces of the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League.
“[The coaches] have done a really good job, not just with me, but everyone,” Bower said. “They put us in some really good leagues that help us develop our skills to the best that we can.”
Bower said summer ball provides him an opportunity to refine his game and prepare for another year at Elon.
“For me, the summer is just a time to work on skills,” Bower said. “At Elon, they give us a clear guideline of what they want us to work on in the summer. It’s a time to work on things that need to be worked on for [next spring].”
Bower hit .262 in an injury-hampered season for Elon this spring, but a .349 average in the first half of the Cal Ripken League season was good enough to earn him an all-star nod.
“It’s given me a confidence going into next fall,” Bower said. “I feel like I can be a help to the team.”
Bower’s coach shared the sentiment.
“Hopefully he’ll come back motivated,” Kennedy said. “If he goes out and has a great summer, you hope he’ll come back and go the extra mile.”
In addition to developing players for his own team, Kennedy said the summer leagues provide an opportunity to showcase players for the Major League Baseball draft. David Whitehead, a former Elon pitcher, was an all-star in the prestigious Cape Cod League last summer for the Harwich Mariners. This year, his success helped him get picked by the Philadelphia Phillies in the MLB draft, despite missing most of the spring with an injury.
“Going out and pitching in one of the better leagues, you get noticed,” Kennedy said. “Summer leagues are staples because of the fact that there is wood [bats] being used. It can definitely jump start a career.”
Whether a player is playing in the summer to get noticed by the Major League scouts or improve his game to compete for a starting role at school, unique experiences abound. Players get to see new places and make new friends -- even across traditional enemy lines.
Bower has spent time working out with Samford University first baseman Sam Few, whose Bulldogs are rivals of Elon in the Southern Conference.
“We’ve had a lot of fun doing that,” Bower said. “Just meeting new guys and making new friends, that’s the biggest thing for me"