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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Local Teams in Full Swing

By Harold Smith
Mountain View Telegraph
      Those crazy days of summer might occasionally be a little hazy, but they definitely won't be lazy for the managers, coaches and players of East Mountain Little League.
       East Mountains baseball, softball and T-ball teams have been playing ball since April, and its regular season continues through June 14. The all-star season will tentatively commence around the end of June.
       “We've got about 315 players this season,” EMLL third-year president Karen Demarest said. “We've got 25 teams. It's great that we have three majors teams. We haven't had that in a while. And we'll be hosting the District (5 all-stars) softball championships again like we did a couple of years ago.”
       The East Mountain baseball program includes two juniors-division squads (13- and 14-year-olds) and three majors (10-12), five minors (9-12), seven rookies ( 6-8) and five T-ball (coed 5-6) teams. The geographical league, which extends east from Interstate 40's Carnuel exit, also has three girls softball teams, one each in the minor (9-12), major (10-12) and junior/senior (13-16) divisions.
       “We're also working on doing some interleaguing with Mile High (Little League),” Demarest said. “We thought it would be good so they can get used to playing other teams outside of East Mountain — so they can get ready for all-stars.”
       The EMLL tournament is scheduled for the week of June 9 with championship games for the rookies and minors baseball divisions slated for June 14, tentatively at 8:30 or 9:30 a.m. at the organization's home fields at Vista Grande Community Center.
       “We're having a real good season so far,” Demarest said. “The main thing is we have more kids out there playing.”
       The local league also spent some of its capital-outlay funding to put new dirt on some of the fields.
       “The new dirt is real nice (on two of the fields),” Demarest said. “It looks good, and it doesn't hurt so much when they fall down. We'll put new dirt on the other three fields during the offseason. And we have new foul poles on all five fields.”
       For information, see the Web site at eastmountainlittleleague.com.
       Moriarty Baseball League
       MBL, a youth organization associated with the American Amateur Baseball League, started its regular season in early May.
       “Our (regular-season) games are on Saturdays now,” said Rhett Butler, the league's first-year president. “We changed to having doubleheaders on Saturdays … We have 22 teams. I don't have the exact figures, but we have around 300 kids. It's about the same as last year. There are a bunch of new teams, a lot of young teams.”
       MBL's home fields are at Moriarty's sports complex.
       “We're doing a lot more interleaguing this year,” Butler said. “It's strengthened our relationship with the other leagues. It gives our kids different venues to play at.”
       The league's board of directors includes vice president Shauna Williams as well as Jennifer Brown, Jonathan Ipiotis, James Giron, Frank Cantu, Andrea Glover, Cindy Meech and Manuel Montoya.
       “And we have a lot more volunteers this year,” Butler said. “And we pulled back the infield grass from all the infields but the big field. It makes the play better. They won't have that bad bounce, and infield grass takes an enormous amount of maintenance
       The so-called city tournaments — in actuality, they are MBL's league tourneys that pit its players from the Moriarty, Edgewood and Estancia areas — will be held at the complex on June 18-21 for the Wille Mays (10-and-under) division and June 25-28 for the Pee Wee Reese (12U) division.
       Moriarty will also host the state AABC Roberto Clemente (8U), the state single-age 9U and the state single-age 11U tournaments on June 26-29. This year, Las Cruces will host the state Mays competition on June 25-27 and the state Reese tourney on July 9-12, and Santa Fe will host the state Sandy Koufax division (14U) tourney on July 9-12.
       “And we're hosting the South Plains Regional (tournament on July 17-20), for the second year, for Pee Wees,” Butler said. “That was a two-year deal. There's another team from Texas coming, like last year. They have their own organization, they pay their coaches, and they have their own practice facility. It's a tryout team.”
       For information, go to the Web site at www.moriartybaseball.com.
   

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