Thursday, March 28, 2024

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GAMES-Lower’s Sturm to Develop Southern Cape Baseball Academy

By Joe Rossi

A devout love of base-ball and the competition it presents motivates Randy Sturm.
The 48-year-old North Cape May resident pitched in the Kansas City Royals organization after outstanding per-ormances at the high school and collegiate levels. His playing days included the Cape Cod League and Puerto Rico.
He and wife, Joann, raised two sons who grew to understand the love for baseball and the competitive fire that burns inside their father.
These days, the self-employed masonry con-tractor is contemplating a resurrection of sorts for this region’s love of baseball. For a decade, Sturm, along with a group of fellow baseball enthusiasts, has led the Southern Cape baseball organization. Comprised of various age groups, Southern Cape was part of the American Legion Baseball League.
Legion ball includes some geographic boundaries regarding recruitment of players. Sturm, along with Tim Shoffler, Rich Hans, Mike Hrubos and Bill Kocis, expects to leave Legion in favor of a more regional recruitment of the best and most dedicated young baseball players available.
Sturm and company in-tend to work with these young athletes from age 13 through 19 to develop their skills and play competitive baseball on the tournament circuit.
“I want to bring base-ball back,” said Sturm. “When I’m 60 I want to be able to go back to my high school (Lower Cape May) and see a baseball game. Kids have lost the love of the game and thrill of the competition.”
Sturm envisions try-outs for baseball players from Somers Point south. Three teams consisting of 13 and under, 16 and under and 19 and under would be staffed with the most talented, hardworking and dedicated players he can round up.
He’s begun investigating local real estate to create an indoor batting facility. The goal is to host batting and fielding drills throughout the chilly winter months.
“We’re looking for a place for hitting and fielding instruction all winter long,” said Sturm. “I like the competition in baseball and I love to see kids get better.”
Sturm’s vision is to invite talented players, regardless of their town of residence, to truly learn the fundamentals of the game he loves. Like many baseball people, Sturm is disappointed with the decline in the game’s popularity among youngsters. He disdains the absence of fundamental instruction in youth and school baseball pro-grams.
He wants to make a difference.
Recently, Joann told her husband something interesting. She said he’d spent 56 hours on baseball during the previous week. She wondered why he didn’t try to make a living working with young players in the game he loves. After all, she noted, he won’t be able to do masonry work forever.
“I know a lot of people in baseball and I believe we can establish some of the best instruction avail-able anywhere,” said Sturm. “We’ll provide quality one-on-one in-truction. That’s the vision.”
Sturm said he has no intentions to “get rich” on this idea. He said his profession has provided him with a comfortable living but he’s now interested in working more intently in the game he loves and the game he knows he can teach oth-ers to love and play at a high level.
While he’s yet to establish a fee structure for participants, Sturm is firm with the resolve that only players who are suc-cessful in the classroom will be welcome in his Southern Cape baseball development program. His goal is to prepare these athletes for success in high school and college baseball, regardless of division.
“We want to promote baseball with a technically sound approach to learning the game but they must be academically eligible for their school teams in order to stay with us,” said Sturm. “We haven’t had truly dynamic teams in this area for quite some time. We need to develop better pitching around here.”
Sturm’s Southern Cape baseball teams have won every league they’ve competed in over the last 10 years. This summer they’re in second place in the highly competitive Delaware Valley League.
Success comes with dedication and great teaching. Sturm’s squads are on the diamond six days per week including games and practice sessions. He’s serious about developing players for high-level competition.
“We want to get the Southern Cape name out there,” said Sturm. “People need to start seeing it and understand-ing what we’re about. We want to promote baseball the way it was meant to be played.”
Interested parents or players can reach Sturm at 609-889-1062. If you leave a message he prom-ises to call you back.
You can reach Rossi at joerossi61@comcast.net
The 48-year-old North Cape May resident pitched in the Kansas City Royals organization after outstanding per-formances at the high school and collegiate lev-els. His playing days included the Cape Cod League and Puerto Rico.
He and wife, Joann, raised two sons who grew to understand the love for baseball and the competitive fire that burns inside their father.
These days, the self-employed masonry con-tractor is contemplating a resurrection of sorts for this region’s love of baseball. For a decade, Sturm, along with a group of fellow baseball enthu-siasts, has led the South-ern Cape baseball organi-zation. Comprised of various age groups, Southern Cape was part of the American Legion Baseball League.
Legion ball includes some geographic bounda-ries regarding recruitment of players. Sturm, along with Tim Shoffler, Rich Hans, Mike Hrubos and Bill Kocis, expects to leave Legion in favor of a more regional recruitment of the best and most dedicated young baseball players available.
Sturm and company in-tend to work with these young athletes from age 13 through 19 to develop their skills and play com-petitive baseball on the tournament circuit.
“I want to bring base-ball back,” said Sturm. “When I’m 60 I want to be able to go back to my high school (Lower Cape May) and see a baseball game. Kids have lost the love of the game and thrill of the competition.”
Sturm envisions try-outs for baseball players from Somers Point south. Three teams consisting of 13 and under, 16 and under and 19 and under would be staffed with the most talented, hardwork-ing and dedicated players he can round up.
He’s begun investigat-ing local real estate to create an indoor batting facility. The goal is to host batting and fielding drills throughout the chilly winter months.
“We’re looking for a place for hitting and fielding instruction all winter long,” said Sturm. “I like the competition in baseball and I love to see kids get better.”
Sturm’s vision is to invite talented players, regardless of their town of residence, to truly learn the fundamentals of the game he loves. Like many baseball people, Sturm is disappointed with the decline in the game’s popularity among youngsters. He disdains the absence of fundamen-tal instruction in youth and school baseball pro-grams.
He wants to make a difference.
Recently, Joann told her husband something interesting. She said he’d spent 56 hours on baseball during the previ-ous week. She wondered why he didn’t try to make a living working with young players in the game he loves. After all, she noted, he won’t be able to do masonry work forever.
“I know a lot of people in baseball and I believe we can establish some of the best instruction avail-able anywhere,” said Sturm. “We’ll provide quality one-on-one in-struction. That’s the vision.”
Sturm said he has no intentions to “get rich” on this idea. He said his profession has provided him with a comfortable living but he’s now inter-ested in working more intently in the game he loves and the game he knows he can teach oth-ers to love and play at a high level.
While he’s yet to estab-lish a fee structure for participants, Sturm is firm with the resolve that only players who are suc-cessful in the classroom will be welcome in his Southern Cape baseball development program. His goal is to prepare these athletes for success in high school and college baseball, regardless of division.
“We want to promote baseball with a technically sound approach to learn-ing the game but they must be academically eligible for their school teams in order to stay with us,” said Sturm. “We haven’t had truly dynamic teams in this area for quite some time. We need to develop better pitching around here.”
Sturm’s Southern Cape baseball teams have won every league they’ve com-peted in over the last 10 years. This summer they’re in second place in the highly competitive Delaware Valley League.
Success comes with dedication and great teaching. Sturm’s squads are on the diamond six days per week including games and practice ses-sions. He’s serious about developing players for high-level competi-tion.
“We want to get the Southern Cape name out there,” said Sturm. “People need to start seeing it and understand-ing what we’re about. We want to promote baseball the way it was meant to be played.”
Interested parents or players can reach Sturm at 609-889-1062. If you leave a message he prom-ises to call you back.
You can reach Rossi at joerossi61@comcast.net

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