Back in 2020, the Sag Harbor/Bridgehampton Little League was set to join the New York Mets’ Future Stars program, which includes coaching clinics, events and discounted tickets for local board members, coaches and players, but the COVID-19 pandemic cut that short.
This past Sunday the Mets relaunched the program and Sag Harbor/Bridgehampton Little League board members and coaches finally got to see what the program was all about. From being able to step foot on the field of play at Citi Field, to learning the game from Mets coaches and staff, the experience was, well, Amazin’.
“It was so amazing,” said Kevin Dehler, player agent for Sag Harbor/Bridgehampton Little League. “We’re trying to build our league, and we have been successful in doing so. We have 250 signed up this year, which is the most we’ve ever had, and we just want the kids, which includes my two sons, to learn the game the right way, which is playing with sportsmanship and being competitive while also having fun. And these coaches really drove that home yesterday.”
Dehler went to the clinics along with Sag Harbor/Bridgehampton Little League Vice President Ben Gregor, coaches Anthony Cappiello, Brent Green, James Peyton, Mark Poitras, Keith Schumann, David Shorenstein, Frank Sokolowski, Jeff Ziglar and Sag Harbor Middle School baseball coach Luis Aguilar. They all got to learn from the same coaches the Mets players do, who are all former Major League ballplayers themselves in hitting coach Eric Chavez, pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and third-base coach Joey Cora. They also got to learn proper exercise and stretching techniques from Mets strength and conditioning coach Dustin Clarke.
“What we learned is that we’ve been doing it all wrong,” Dehler said, jokingly. “But now we can impart what we learned on to our young players by learning these new drills. And a lot of what we learned was just very simple mechanics and fundamentals.
“It was a real privilege to be coached by some of these amazing men,” he added.
The New York Mets launched their Future Stars program in 2017, “with a goal to build and strengthen relationships with Youth Baseball Organizations in the tri-state area,” as stated on their website, mlb.com/mets. Over 40 leagues and 12,000 ballplayers participate in the program.
“Our goal is for every child to participate in sports and to help youth sports programs generate the funds to provide these opportunities,” it says on the website.
A portion of every ticket purchased through the Mets Future Stars program is donated back to each child’s Little League. The program also allows for leagues to have their teams take the field for parades, which are typically done prior to each Friday and Sunday home game throughout the season. Dehler said the league is gearing up for its parade on Father’s Day.
“Very selfishly, it was awesome,” Dehler said of the experience. “I didn’t want to leave. I was envisioning myself shagging fly balls in center field.
“But all I really want is to make lasting memories for our players, and you know what? It’s not about the final score of the games, because no kid really remembers that. They might remember a specific play, but what they really remember is the way the field looked, or the smell from the concession stands, and as the coaches told us, at the end of the day, it’s about having fun and letting them find their way. We just need to break baseball down to a simpler form, hit the ball hard and then run hard and then good things happen. It was great to have that positive reinforcement from the coaches, who, by the way, all have kids and have families, and they really humanized everything in a way. I think we forget that these guys are professionals but they’re people too and have lives. It was really tremendous.”