Archive for February, 2007

Miracle League and the Dad’s Network

February 23, 2007 at 9:06 pm · Filed under League Development, League Visability, Volunteers / Buddies

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Our first stop on the Roadshow was a meeting of the Dad’s Network and spoke about Miracle League.  The Dad’s Network is part of Raising Special Kids, (http://www.raisingspecialkids.org) a great resource for parents given the blessing / challenge of raising a special needs child.  Present at the meeting was a reporter from the Arizona Republic, Ms. Barbara Yost, who is working on content for upcoming article – we’ll all be interested in reading her articles.

We talked with the Dad’s who find a that attending the Dad’s Network meeting are a great outlet for one another in dealing with the special needs of their children.  Gene is working with more organizations than I am, but I’ve been giving some great info on Special Olympics and will be heading off to talk to the people from Muscular Dystrophy this next week.

PowerPoint from Dad’s Network Meeting

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The Miracle League of Arizona Road Show & The First Player

February 20, 2007 at 1:51 am · Filed under Uncategorized

So now Gene and I are putting on our version of the Miracle League Road Show.  True to Gene’s power and drive, we already had our first few stops planned by the time we drove back from Surprise and visiting with Paul Frie of the City of Surprise.

To prepare for the road show, we determined that a picture would speak a thousand words.  I called friends at Baum’s Sporting Goods, who supply many of the youth leagues in Arizona with uniforms and equipment and asked them to rustle up a uniform for our first player.  They responded enthusiastically and they promised to have one ready by the next Thursday.

So at Dreamcatcher Park the following Thursday afternoon, we met up with our first player sign-up, Nicolas Thau, to present Nic Dreaming at Dreamcatcher Parkhim with the #1 uniform from Miracle League.  Nick brought his brother, who is also his Buddy, Christopher, and the van driver, Cristy Thau.  As soon as Gene showed Nick the uniform the over, Nick couldn’t wait to get into it.  The pictures speak volumes about how ready Nic is to play baseball!  The field is also seen in the background – Paul promises that it’ll be ready for us the end of March.  We’re also working on Opening Day Ceremonies with The City – stay tuned on details as they come out.

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First Arizona Field Opens! Dreamcatcher Park at City of Surprise opens in March 2007

February 19, 2007 at 4:35 am · Filed under League Visability, Miracle Fields

It’s heeerrrreee!!!  The first Miracle League field in Arizona and it’s been built by our friends in Surprise Arizona.  The facility is amazing to behold – as I look around the field, I can almost hear the sound of players, buddies and volunteers as they all enjoy the great American Pastime of Baseball…

The week before last, Gene and I sat down with Paul Frie of the City of Surprise Community & Recreations Services.  We discussed the new field, tentatively titled “Dreamcatcher Park”, what the needed resources would be, how the concessions would work, the announcing duties and more. He officially registered Gene and I as volunteers in their program and promptly put us in charge of getting the word out for the first season.

The target for the first season at Dreamcatcher is 40 players. Paul said he would leverage his team from the wildly successful Babe Ruth program they run, but we all agreed that as to our first season, 40 would be a manageable number.  The plan beyond that is to take the summer to review our efforts and then get ready to put on a complete program next year – one that will address several levels of special needs recreational and competitive baseball using the Surprise field and, hopefully, the new fields being built in the Reach 11 area by the City of Phoenix.

Visit the forms page for registration forms.  Contact either us here by clicking the ‘Contact Us’ button or visit the website for the City of Surprise at http://www.surpriseaz.com/

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Miracle League of Arizona website moves to the Blogsphere

February 19, 2007 at 4:32 am · Filed under League Visability

Here is the new Miracle League of Arizona website (www.MiracleLeagueAZ.org), now in a blog posting here at WordPress.  The toolset is rich and easy to use and should allow a more robust vehicle for communications between the various stakeholders of Miracle League of Arizona.

Read up on our news, share and post some of your news, and please share your voice and vision; let’s help all kid’s play baseball!

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