WELCOME 2015-2016 West Garden Grove Youth Baseball

Dear WGGYB Baseball Parents, Families, and Friends:

Welcome to WGGYB! I’ve been a baseball fan my entire life, but I have never enjoyed the game more than during the past few years at WGGYB. To me, baseball is about time spent with family, friends, and our community. It’s about that “I did it!” moment of accomplishment that every kid experiences during the season after getting a hit or making a catch. And it’s about creating memories that last a lifetime.

In many ways, WGGYB is an old-fashioned neighborhood little league—and that’s what I love about it. With a wonderful community spirit and gathering spot for families and friends to get together, there’s no better place to be!

We have a lot of great things in store for the coming year and we hope that your family thoroughly enjoys creating new friendships and memories at WGGYB!

2015 was a banner year for WGGYB and we’re extremely proud of the numerous coaches and players that came together after our regular season to form teams that achieved impressive results in both local and district-wide tournaments. Again congratulations to all that were involved. In 2015, we actually grew in size from our 2014 numbers which is virtually unheard of in baseball these days - this year we hope to welcome even more players to our league.

Looking ahead to the 2015 – 2016 season, I want to outline some changes and my goals as well as ask for your help.

• Player Development. The Board will strive to place player development as a top priority for our league – development both as citizens and ball players. For each division, the Board will outline a set of skills and expectations that each child will learn by the end of the season. Our goal will be to emphasize fundamentals and instill a sense of fun back into the game.
• Coach Development. Our league is 100% volunteer driven. We want to ensure that our volunteer coaches have the tools they need to successfully implement our player development goals. We plan to host a coaching clinic prior to our regular season to show coaches and parents how to work with players as well as institute greater consistency among player teaching. At the end of the season, each coach will be graded on how well they’ve been able to implement our player development goals.
• Fall Ball. We are excited to re-introduce Fall Ball to the league. We are honored that we had over 100 kids participating across 4 divisions. We piloted a inter-league program with Cypress Youth Baseball creating 9 and 10 team divisions. Our goal for Fall Ball is to allow the participating kids an opportunity to focus on baseball fundamentals in a non-competitive environment.
• Champions Division. Baseball should be a sport open to and enjoyed by everyone. We are excited to launch a Champions Division for those players with physical or mental disabilities. Champions Division games will be played on Sunday. We intend to match every Champion Division player with a mentor player from our upper divisions. Stay tuned for more details!
• Fostering an Enhanced Sense of Community. WGGYB has been interwoven into the fabric of the West Garden Grove community for over 58 years. I want to deepen that bond between WGGYB and the community by inviting the community to our facility each week – creating a safe, fun, and entertaining environment for everyone. Our primary objective is to firmly implant in the children of the entire community the ideals of good sportsmanship, honesty, loyalty, courage and respect for authority so that they may be well adjusted, stronger and happier children and will grow to be good, decent, healthy and trustworthy citizens of our community. I hope you will join me in this most important effort.

We have an outstanding Board in place for this year that will be working to implement these goals. My heartfelt thanks goes out to all of them as they volunteer their time and effort to make WGGYB a pillar within our community.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or ideas about the league.

Sincerely,

Terry Anderson

President, WGGYB