Rob Nelson Is Ready For His Final Year Of The Southampton Baseball School

Rob Nelson once told someone that he’d keep running the Southampton Baseball School through the Town of Southampton Parks and Recreation Department each summer until he couldn't strike out a 12-year-old anymore.

Although he could probably still accomplish that feat, even at 72, the time to step down seems to have come.

After 35 years, this August will mark the final year that the Southampton Baseball School will be run by Nelson, who simply said that it was time.

“It just feels right,” he said from his home in Portland, Oregon, last week. “Thirty-five years seems like a lot, and it was really fun. I’ve got a lot of other plans, and of course I’ve still got Big League Chew and I run a few hitting and pitching clinics. I wanted to go out on a high note, kind of like Sandy Koufax having a really great final season, and it’s time.

“I feel lucky that at 72 I can still throw a knuckleball that dazzles an 11-year-old kid,” he continued. “I don’t want to go one year too long. I missed it like crazy last year, which would have made this year our 36th year before COVID put the kibosh on everything. A lot of my coaches who were kids in the camp at one time, now they’re getting to go away to college, and quite honestly, I think they’ve figured out that this was more of a favor to me than as a betterment for themselves. I think it’s a good time to say thanks.”

Nelson, a Massapequa native with numerous ties to the East End, had run the baseball camp that’s held at Red Creek Park in Hampton Bays with his brother Harry Nelson for numerous years, starting in 1986. Both Harry and Rob Nelson are former professional baseball players. Harry starred in the Cape Cod Baseball League and played three minor league seasons in the New York Yankees farm system, before being forced out of the game due to an injury. Rob played for the short-lived Portland Mavericks, a minor league team created by Kurt Russell’s father, Bing, in 1973, that played its final season just four years later. The team is featured in the Netflix Original documentary, “The Battered Bastards of Baseball.” Rob also played overseas quite a bit before calling his professional career.

Shortly after his playing career, Nelson worked in advertising for a well-known pitching machine company, Jugs, based in Oregon. His older brother Harry, though, was planting roots on the East End, having moved to Hampton Bays in the late 1970s to work at the Lobster Inn. Their mother and father, Jean and Harold, would spend summers in Hampton Bays, and eventually moved to the hamlet full time.

In 1986, the Nelson brothers spoke to the Parks and Recreation Department about adding a baseball camp, and thus it was created. Even though he lived on the other side of the country, due to his time flexibility with his full-time job of being the founder of Big League Chew, which was paying a lot of his bills, Nelson traveled each summer to the East End, not only to run the camp, but to catch up with a lot of friends he made while working at the Lobster Inn.

“I enjoy catching up with family and friends,” Nelson said. “I don’t golf, so this camp is my four hours of enjoyment. I think we’ve always said that we’ve led the league in fun and I’ve always tried to run the camp the way we played on Oakdale Place in Massapequa in the early 60s, making our own rules as we went along. And as director of the camp I tried to make it as kid friendly as possible.”

Tommy Wilkie, a lifelong Hampton Bays resident, has been involved in the camp for 12 of the 18 years of his life as both a player and now a coach. Although he’s a serious ball player himself, who is set to play at Drew University after a successful high school career at St. John The Baptist, what Wilkie likes most about the camp is how laid back and fun it was.

“Rob kind of lets the kids go out there and have fun so they don't have any pressure on the field,” he said. “We just go out there and have fun and it’s for any skill level, you just go out there and play ball.”

Wilkie added that he’s “definitely upset” that this is Nelson’s last year with the camp.

“It’s been a staple of all my summers for the past 12 years,” he said. “He’s had a really good run. Everything is ending on a good note.”

Peter Richard, 62, originally from Riverhead before moving to Southampton where he lived for 15 years or so, met Rob Nelson working at the Lobster Inn where the two became good friends. Richard, who now lives in Florida, got a call from Nelson in 1986, asking him if he wanted to be a coach in the camp.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Richard recalls Nelson asking him.

Richard said there may have been 12 kids that first year, and as the camp grew through the years, it had to be capped at 30. It’s the intimacy and the one-on-one interaction that really fuels the camp.

The camp runs two sessions, August 2-6 and August 9-13, from 9 a.m. to noon and costs a very affordable $125, which when there’s about one coach for every four kids, it’s practically a steal. Chris Bean, the former superintendent of the Parks and Recreation department, was once quoted as saying, “I don’t think it covers his airfare,” referring to Nelson.

Gina D'Amaro of the Parks and Rec department confirmed last week that the town does plan on continuing the camp.

“We hope to do so if we can get a qualified instructor for it,” she said. “Rob brought a lot of energy and knowledge and made it a fun learning experience.”

Nelson thanked the town for the many years it helped him put the camp together, and while he doubts the camp could ever be duplicated, he said he will always be there to help whoever would like to try.

“I’m very fond of everyone at Southampton Parks. They treated me as a rare gem, even though I was more of a rough cut diamond,” Nelson said. “Red Creek Park will always be a very special place for me because of the town making sure the field was just right, and I give them tip of the cap.

“You know, I never trademarked the school, maybe I should have, but when people ask what it’s like, I say it’s like Robin Williams meets Cal Ripken,” he said. “We teach about eight fundamental things and the rest we just play a lot. Someone could come along and see us running the school and say that’s some zany youth baseball camp, but the goal of the camp is not to improve a player’s game dramatically. It never has. It’s almost more of a source to rejuvenate their love of the game. There’s a free-flowing style to it that just doesn’t really exist in camps these days.

“So this may be the last hurrah of the Southampton Baseball School as it’s been known, but bottom line, if somebody wanted to come out and do it again like we did it and pick up the torch and keep it going, I would help them as much as I could,” he continued. “But I’m looking forward to those first two weeks of August. I think we’re going out on a high note and I think that’s a good thing.”

There are still some open slots available for the camp. Those interested can call Southampton Town Parks and Recreation department at 631-728-8585, or go to southamptonrecreation.net.