2012 Tryout Dates:

* Registration begins an hour before each tryout.  Tryouts are conducted as a pro style tryout, with players being evaluated on speed, fielding, arm strength and hitting.

2012 Baseball Extravaganza & Coaches Clinic Dates Announced

Berkshire Baseball held its first annual Baseball Extravaganza & Coaches Clinic November 10th - November 12th, 2011. The event turned out to be a huge success for all parties.

The dates for the 2012 Baseball Extravaganza & Coaches Clinic have already been released.  The event, which will be even bigger and better next year, will again be held at the Crowne Plaza from November 8th - November 10th, 2012.

Register early to receive your early-bird discount and keep checking our web site for updates to our 2012 speaker list.  We're looking at adding many more dynamic speakers to the line-up for 2012.

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.  The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives.  It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results."

"Success is not determined by money or the things money can buy. It is not determined by trophies on the shelf or by the letters after one's name. Success is determined by one thing and one thing only: when you leave this earth, is it better because you were here?"

~Jim Dimick

~Jackie Robinson

Mission Statement

The objective of the Berkshire Baseball Club is to promote amateur baseball at every level. Our organization shall strongly encourage our beliefs of good sportsmanship, honesty, loyalty, dignity, humility, class and respect for authority.

We will strive to teach and develop the necessary skills for our players and participants to reach the "next level", all the while fully realizing that for many of the players that go through this organization, the "next level" for them may very well be LIFE. Therefore, let it be known that it is the responsibility of our members and coaches to not only teach and train the young individuals that participate in our program to be better ballplayers, but more importantly, to be better human beings.

To achieve this objective, the Berkshire Baseball Club will provide supervised baseball & softball programs for youth participants in conjunction withthe rules and regulations of the local leagues and tournaments in which they participate as well as the official baseball rules.

Berkshire Baseball pitches in to help those in Need at "Cups of Compassion" Event

~By Dan Clouser
~All Photos Courtesy of Hope Distasio

One of the proudest moments in the rich 22 year history of Berkshire Baseball took place on Tuesday and we were miles away from the nearest baseball field.

Berkshire Baseball has been a member of the Greater

Staff members and friends of the GRCVB look toward the grateful people everywhere.

Tuesday, a few members of Berkshire Baseball, along with the help of many other organizations, businesses and volunteers in the Reading and Berks County community  came together to help those in need by serving free food at the corner of 5th and Penn Streets in Reading.

The idea was the brainchild of Annette Church of The Gallery Above the Square and Laura Taylor of Liberty Law Group.

Our organization was fortunate to become involved when Crystal Seitz, President of the GRCVB sent out an email to her board looking for some support with the event.

Burgers and Hot Dogs for all.

With our last tournament of the season being cancelled by a freak October blizzard, our organization was left with the question of what in the world were we going to do with all of the left-over food and drinks that we had from the concession stands at each field?

At our November board meeting, when the topic came up for discussion, Hope Distasio, mother of Nick Distasio, a player on our 16-U Berkshire Blue Sox team suggested that we donate the left-over food to the Greater Reading and Berks Food Bank.  Thinking that was a great idea, but also having to finalize our banquet, coaches clinic and details on our upcoming winter clinics, the food remained in the freezers of board members and parents throughout Berks County.

Members of Berkshire Baseball and the Crowne Plaza Reading help serve on a chilly winter day.

I guess sometimes everything happens for a reason, so when I received Crystal's email about the Cups of Compassion event, the wheels in my head immediately started to turn.  The strangest thing is that I was actually considering conducting a similar event ourselves with our extra food, after I had read the Secret Santa article in the paper a few weeks back.  Again, I guess things really do happen for a reason.

So I forwarded Crystal's email to our board asking for their thoughts on donating our left-over concession items and having some members come out that morning and help grill.  It was a no-brainer and everything just started to fall into place from there.

Once our board approved the idea, I ran it by Crystal and Annette because the initial request was for soups and we were a little outside of the soup theme with burgers, dogs, chips, snacks and drinks.  The idea was embraced and we were off to the races a little over a week prior to the event to put everything into place.

We started coordinating how to get all of the food from the freezers that is was currently in, to the event and gathered up a few volunteers to help with the day of the event.  The only items that we did not have for the event were the rolls, which Stroemann Bakeries graciously donated to the cause.

So Tuesday morning at 7:30 AM, Boo Schaeffer and Mike Billera-Smith met at the Berks County Youth Recreational Facility and loaded our big grill onto Boo's truck and headed into the city.  I stopped at my daughter and son-in-law's house to get food from their freezer and then again at FirstEnergy Stadium to meet Dan Douglas and get the remaining food that the Reading Phillies had been gracious enough to allow us to store in one of their big freezers.

Then I was off to the city, where Bill Hartranft and Hope and Natalia Distasio met us to get our portion of the event set-up.

As soon as I arrived, I could feel something special in the air.  There was a buzz and a feeling that we were all helping and pulling together to do our small part to help get this great city back to the prosperous place that it once was.

Members of the Downtown Improvement District were scurrying around since 6:30 in the morning setting up tables and chairs and prepping for the event.

No one was standing around, we were all greeting each other with smiles and hugs and grabbing coolers and crock pots to get set-up and get ready to go.

From the time that we threw our first burgers and dogs on the grill around 8:30 AM, the people started to line up and the line went on for hours.  The original timeframe for the event was 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM, but we determined that we'd serve until the food ran out, which was somewhere around 12:30 PM.

We served non-stop for four hours, I only had about a five minute break when I could peak around the corner and see the action at the other serving stations and was simply amazed by how this group pulled together for the common good of our community.

The gratitude of those who benefited from this event was simply overwhelming.  They were all smiling and happy and truly grateful for our efforts.  Many telling us how this was their first hot meal in a week or more.  They filled up on soup and hamburgers and hot dogs today and many stocked up on our Slim Jim's or a bag of chips, saying that that would be tomorrows meal.

Words can not express the feeling that you get when helping in a situation like that.  You feel awesome that you're able to make someone's day, but by the same token, you're incredibly frustrated by knowing that you're just scratching the surface of a much larger problem.  The nice part about working the grill for four hours was that no one could tell if my eyes were watering because of battling the smoke from the grill or from battling my emotions.

The power of a few emails gripped a community if only for a few hours, but it will last a lifetime for many.  To think about the number of people that we touched in those few hours was impressive.  The thought of what we'll be able to do in the future is really overwhelming.

The GRCVB only reached out to it's board members, our own organization only reached out to our board members and the parent whose idea snow balled.  Everything came to together so quickly, that my initial thought was to reach out to our general membership for support and that never happened.  I truly apologize to all those parents who have told me since Tuesday that they wish that they would've known about the event because would have loved to help and I assure you that you will know about it well in advance for 2012.

I am sure that this event will become a benchmark of the resilience and compassion that exists in Reading, PA and I am so grateful to Annette, Laura and Crystal for allowing our organization to be a small part of such a powerful event and look forward to helping it get even better in the future.

5th and Penn buzzes with the Christmas spirit.