Opening day for major league baseball is still several weeks away, but residents of Plainsboro and Cranbury are already coming in from the cold to enjoy Cranbury-Plainsboro Little League’s first annual open house, Friday, March 14, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Cranbury School at 23 Main Street in Cranbury. You can expect skill-building demonstrations by baseball and softball experts and information about CPLL’s umpire and safety programs. League officials will also be on hand to answer questions and give helpful information about the many changes planned for the upcoming baseball and softball season.##M:[more]##
While West Windsor has its own Little League, Plainsboro, located in Middlesex County, shares a Little League with Cranbury, also in Middlesex County, which is one of nineteen leagues in Little League District 12. “We’ve worked very hard to raise the level of the league overall, and now we’re trying to grow the program and grow the numbers,” explains Jeffrey Frain, president of the CPLL Board. He and his wife, Susan, have one child who finished his Little League career and two who still play in the league: Andrew, a seventh grader; Brendan, a second-grader; and Molly, a kindergartner.
Boosting participation is one of the big challenges for CPLL, which, like all the competitive sports leagues in the area, faces increasing competition from the multitude of other spring-time offerings, including soccer — now played year-round, lacrosse, tennis and non-sports activities as well.
“We have an amazing number of talented people on our CPLL board, all very motivated, who share the same goals,” says Frain. “One of our biggest priorities is to help kids learn the valuable lessons that sports can teach — teamwork, dedication, cooperation, perseverance and respect. In fact, we’ve formed a partnership with the Positive Coaching Alliance, a national organization within the Stanford University athletic department. The key message is that winning is fine, but more important are the life lessons that we can teach our children through youth sports. It affects how we behave as coaches, umpires, and parents, as role models.”
The entire CPLL board went through PCA leadership training, and adopted several recommendations. Key among those recommendations is improving emergency communication at the fields, for example, if there is a situation where a child gets hurt. “We are taking first aid training and establishing an even more streamlined process for emergency response that will be in place for this season,” says Frain.
The league will also standardize communication between team managers and parents by providing a pre-season parent meeting template. No matter what team or what level, the information that is communicated to the parents is the same. The league is also “coaching the coaches,” that is, formalizing the process of teaching coaches so that at each level of play, they will know what skills they should be teaching and how they should be teaching them. “The most immediate benefit for the players is an improvement in their skills levels. The long-term benefit is that they will enjoy baseball and softball more as they get better.”
One of the most critical changes made by the league in the last few years is a blind draft system to form the teams. “The process is inherently fair and provides the best chance of dividing player talent equally among all the teams. The goal was not to prevent a team from winning every game, but to stop a team from losing every game,” says Frain. “Similarly, we have changed the process by which our All Star-teams are selected. It may never be perfect, but it is designed to be fair.”
Many players who have aged out of playing in the league are still participating through the umpire program, which is booming. In fact, 40 new teenagers signed up to be trained as umpires at a clinic offered this winter. “Not only are they picking up new skills as umpires, they are also learning valuable life skills such as accepting responsibility, being community citizens, and taking the reins of leadership,” says Frain.
High on the CPLL’s wish list is building an indoor facility. “It would greatly improve the development of our program by allowing us to work with the kids year round and not lose the down time over the winter,” Frain explains.
“We are also working hard to improve the condition of our playing fields. In cooperation with the Plainsboro and Cranbury Public Works Departments, we are addressing the drainage issues at some fields and lack of water at others. Remarkably, Cranbury Township notified the CPLL recently that its application for a $50,”000 grant from Middlesex County to improve the baseball fields in Cranbury Village Park has been successful.”
This is Frain’s fifth year on the CPLL board and his second year as president. “We had just been in the community a few years and it was a great way get involved with a sport I love,” says Frain, who grew up in Wayne, started playing Little League baseball at the age of eight and has fond memories of throwing the baseball around with his three older brothers.
“Little League was great,” recalls Frain, who works in sales in North Jersey when he’s not doing CPLL board work. “It made me love the game at that level and launched me to the next level.” That level eventually included Bucknell, where he majored in economics and played baseball for two years. That’s also where he met his wife, Susan, at a dance. “She chatted with me and then went on to dance with someone else,” he laughs, “but then I later discovered she lived two floors below me.”
Frain notes that the league runs on volunteer power. “All of us recognize that the success of the league depends on the participation and support of the parents,” he says. “Our main motivation is to try to make a positive difference. What may start out as a desire to improve the quality of the experience for our own children quickly translates into improving the experience for all children so that when Little League careers are over, they are looked back upon fondly and will be remembered for a lifetime.”
Cranbury-Plainsboro Little League Open House: Friday, March 14, 7 to 9 p.m. at the Cranbury School, 23 Main Street. For information visit www.cpll.org. The author of this story is herself a CPLL parent.
