Tag Archives: Jeff Mitchell

[OPINION] Play Ball! Specifically, Play Baseball.

Posted on March 15, 2025 | 3 comments

Major League Baseball’s opening day is Tuesday, March 18 — in Tokyo. (Don’t ask.)

Westport Little Leaguers have already started practicing. Their season starts March 31 (weather permitting).

Jeff Mitchell has been a Westport resident for over 30 years, and a Westport Baseball and Softball volunteer for more than 20. Today, he shares his thoughts on what makes Westport Little League special.

In an era when “travel ball” dominates youth sports, Little League Baseball remains a cherished tradition. It is a rite of passage for young athletes experiencing their first team sport.

Despite the allure of high-level competition, town-based Little League continues to thrive, offering an experience that is as much about community as it is about competition.

Playing baseball, having fun with friends.

Unlike many other team sports, baseball ensures every player gets their moment in the spotlight at the plate, making for great photo opportunities and proud family memories. The game’s pace also creates natural pauses, allowing parents to connect, share advice, and organize playdates.

Baseball has a role for every child, whether they have speed, power, strong hand-eye coordination, or even just the advantage of being left-handed. Additionally the sport is highly adaptable for children with disabilities, which is why Westport’s Challenger Program continues to thrive.

Challenger baseball is a hit! (Photo collage/Beth Cody)

Many families trace their longest-lasting friendships back to their child’s first pre-K/kindergarten team, reinforcing the sense of community that makes Little League special. To help maintain these connections, we encourage parents to send us their friend requests to help keep existing playgroups intact.

For players, dugout time is bonding time. With half the game spent on offense, teammates have plenty of time to talk, cheer each other on, and build friendships that last beyond the field.

Westport Little League is organized by grade level: pre-K/K, Grade 1, Grade 2, A (Grade 3), AA (Grade 4), AAA (Grade 5), and Majors (Grades 6/7).

This allows kids to play with their peers, rather than being placed strictly on skill, as is often the case in travel ball.

Since the top Little League players frequently also play travel, aspiring athletes — especially developing pitchers — get ample opportunities to take the mound and gain valuable experience. Additionally, every player is included in the batting order, unlike travel ball, where lineups can be selective.

Westport takes pride in having one of the most unique umpiring programs in the country. Most of our officials are middle and high school students.

The discipline and understanding required to officiate the game often translate to a deeper baseball IQ, giving these Westport players an edge when competing at higher levels.

Our umpires are trained by certified professionals, ensuring they develop skills that benefit them both on and off the field.

Our Little League teams have won many district and state championships, even reaching the Little League World Series final game in 2013.

Staples Baseball has won multiple FCIAC and state championships, and produced 3 Connecticut Gatorade Players of the Year. All went on to be drafted by the pros. One now wears a World Series championship ring.

Westport Little League players learned from Staples athletes, at a recent clinic in the fieldhouse.

Westport Little League isn’t just about baseball. It’s about building friendships, developing skills, and fostering a love for the game that lasts a lifetime. Whether a child dreams of making it to the big leagues or simply wants to be part of a team, Little League is where it all begins.

For more information, click here.

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Posted in Children, Sports

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Behind The Scenes: A Look At Field Scheduling

Posted on February 7, 2024 | 25 comments

Jeff Mitchell has been a Westport resident for over 30 years, and a Westport Baseball and Softball volunteer for more than 20. For the last decade, he has scheduled baseball games and practices in town, and worked with the Parks & Recreation Department on reserving and preserving baseball field space. He writes:

For the upcoming spring season, Westport’s youth sports programs will schedule hundreds of teams for games and practices on our scarce few athletics fields.

This process is complex, time-consuming, unrelenting — and apparently completely misunderstood.

Every field in Westport is considered multipurpose. Like rooms in a house, some are obviously more suited for one purpose than another. But very often it boils down to which location is available when you need it. It therefore makes the most sense to make every location as multipurpose (flexible) as possible. In simple terms, that means drawing as many different lines on them as feasible.

The Wakeman Fields adjacent to Bedford Middle School are used for soccer, lacrosse, baseball, football practice, school sports, frisbee and more. The “B” field (center left) is artificial turf. The rest are grass.

At the start of all 4 seasons, schedulers of all the youth sports meet with Parks & Rec to make their case for who gets priority on which fields on what days, and at what times.

There is no such convenience that soccer gets to use all the soccer fields, baseball all the baseball fields, etc. That’s because field space is so tight in Westport that no town-administered field can afford to be deemed single use.

For example, even the wonderfully renovated Staples baseball and soccer terraces are used seasonally. The 2 sports have shared the same field since 1958.

Youth sports has exploded lately. Kids not only play on Westport’s recreational teams, but also on our many travel teams. Sports are no longer seasonal; they are year-round. Girls now play sports such as lacrosse and rugby that traditionally were played by boys. Just because there are fewer girls playing a particular sport doesn’t mean they don’t deserve equal access to field space. How else can they grow their sport?

Westport PAL lacrosse players, at Paul Lane Stadium.

Schedulers never know until after our registration deadlines how many kids we’ll need to accommodate, hence how many fields of what size we’ll need to reserve. Even once we know, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to reserve that number of fields.

Worse, our travel team schedules are beholden to whatever external leagues we enter them in. The result is often one sport calling another asking if a field primarily reserved for that sport’s use might miraculously be free. That’s the benefit of fields being as multipurpose as possible.

Parks & Rec’s maintenance staff schedules athletic field maintenance for when the sun comes up, so that our kids can use them when they wake up.

Their schedules are based on what else they need to do the rest of the day. How many guys they have on call on any given day in the morning varies with how many fields need prepping, which we schedulers try to give them a reasonable idea on as long in advance as possible.

Because Little League uses the baseball fields at Town Farms and Coleytown Elementary School almost every daylight hour school is not in session, we pay a third-party landscaper 6 figures specifically to assure as little downtime as possible.

Westport Baseball and Softball outsources some maintenance to third party vendors. (Photo/Eric Bosch)

The problem with having such a demand for field space is that the wear and tear on fields is horrendous. When it rains, baseball fields turn to mud. If the clay is not immediately properly raked, it gets rock hard in the sun.

One tournament on a grass field can destroy it for an entire season. For example, in the summers of 2022 and ’23, a well-attended lacrosse tournament damaged the Staples soccer field so badly that the boys and girls varsity soccer teams had to move all their remaining home games to Wakeman.

A private organization rented Staples’ Loeffler Field in the summers of 2022 and ’23. It rendered the field unplayable for the varsity boys and girls soccer teams for those fall seasons.

Parks & Rec has asked us to please keep a field free for just one season so they can remediate it. That’s sadly not feasible in Westport.

Why do so many kids play sports these days? Of course, for fun — but also for opportunity. A recent Fortune Magazine article cites a 2003 book, Reclaiming the Game: “athletes are twice as likely to be admitted to an elite college as legacies and four times that of under-represented students. Since this study came out, the number of recruited athletes has increased 45%, compared to overall college growth of 33%.”

Parents know this. Parents see that Staples High School has won numerous state championships in a wide variety of sports. Staples baseball just had one player, Hiro Wyatt, sign for $1.5 million with the Kansas City Royals right out of high school.

The list of top schools our student-athletes have gotten admitted to is mind-boggling. These kids began their sports careers playing youth sports. People even tell us they moved to Westport because we are such a phenomenal sports town.

Yes, we are. But we have the ability to be even better.

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Posted in Children, Sports, Staples HS

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Unsung Hero #299

Posted on August 23, 2023 | 14 comments

Two of Jeff Mitchell’s many fans want to make sure he’s recognized as an Unsung Hero.

They prefer anonymity. Yet their admiration and respect for Jeff is clear. One writes:

Jeff’s gift of his time, to strengthen our community and make it a more enjoyable place for others, is striking. And he seeks no attention, fanfare, credit, praise or accolades.

As a volunteer for the Remarkable Theater, Jeff did not miss an opportunity to help every night of film, for the past 3 years. He did not miss one screening!

Beyond assisting in various roles, Jeff took tremendous extra steps, ensuring all would have a “remarkable” time.

Jeff Mitchell

He created a grid-like parking system, with an arc design, so every car enjoyed clear sight lines.

Jeff brought receivers/speakers from home and wired them up nightly, so guests who wanted to sit outside their cars could easily hear the soundtrack.

Jeff stayed late to jump-start all makes and models of cars if they had drained their batteries. People could not praise and thank him enough.

With unmeasurable patience and encouragement, Jeff taught members of the Remarkable Workforce (adults with disabilities) how to become proficient and independent at new tasks and responsibilities.

Jeff assisted with Wi-fi issues, projector issues, car tech issues — any tech issues, for that matter. He enjoyed the challenge, and giving his knowledge, attention and time, to help others.

Jeff advocates for the Remarkable Theater, giving those who struggle to represent themselves a voice. He promotes the Remarkable Theater, continuously suggesting new and exciting possibilities for future fun around the theater and town,

 

In his world of Westport Little League baseball, he endlessly does those same sorts of things too.

If a kid nails a home run, Jeff quietly climbs through the woods to retrieve the ball. The joy on a child’s face when Jeff hands over the prize is palpable.

Knowing how much the co-ed Challenger team (for players with disabilities) and their families look forward to baseball, Jeff goes out of his way to ensure they have a playable field. He brings rakes from home, and flour if necessary to stripe the baselines. The families respond with delight and glee.

He’s the guy in the shadows who goes unnoticed. But whatever the circumstance, Jeff is there, always ready to help, working  from the heart. He is your friendly, neighborhood superhero (Unsung Hero too).

Another fan adds:

Jeff coached his own kids in Little League. They are now 29 and 27, so you can see he goes way back. Plus he’s been on the Westport Baseball & Softball board, and has volunteered for the last 20 years.

He does so many tasks, they’d need 10 people to replace him.

Despite it being a very complex job, with tons of moving parts and logistics, he is never impatient. He does not raise his voice or get angry.

 

Among his contributions:

Tech guy; internet issues.

Liaison with League Athletics — umpire coordinator. He has the thankless job of getting young umpires scheduled. He has to deal with frequent no-shows and replacements, at the last minute.

He schedules the fields for a large number of teams, and has to coordinate timing with other youth sports.

He sends out all league emails, and inputs all fees for billing.

He is the ultimate Superfan. He attends Little League, Challenger and Staples games regularly.

He is the liaison between Little League and the Staples Diamond Club. He runs LL Day, when all Little Leaguers attend a Staples game, meet the players, run on the field (and get free pizza).

He broadcasts summer games on Facebook Live, enabling lazy people (like me), out-of-towners and parents who can’t attend to see the entire game, with his commentary. Even when it’s 95 degrees!

He gathers game scores and posts them on the website.

He has volunteered as kindergarten commissioner for many years. He loves to organize teams so kids from the same school can be together. He happily fields annoying parent requests to change teams so “Johnny can play with Timmy.” Has to recruit tons of coaches (because many pre-K/K kids means many coaches).

He arranged for Challenger to play at the East Regional Tournament game in Bristol next year — the one that determines which teams go to the Little League World Seriies.

Oh, yeah: Jeff drops off ice cream in the concession stand freezer for Challenger.

I’m exhausted reading all this!

Congratulations, Jeff Mitchell. You are our VERY well-deserving “06880” Unsung Hero of the week.

(Anyone can nominate an Unsung Hero. Email 06880blog@gmail.com)

(If you enjoy our Unsung Hero — or any other “06880” feature — please support our work. Just click here. Thank you!)

 

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Posted in Children, Entertainment, Sports, Unsung Heroes

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Weaving Through Westport’s Worst Intersection

Posted on October 12, 2017 | 46 comments

In a town filled with traffic lights and stop signs, you’d think one of the busiest and most confusing intersections in town would be tightly regulated.

You’d be wrong.

The Weston Road/Easton Road/Main Street clusterf*** has long defied explanation. Despite traffic funneling from downtown, Cross Highway, the Coleytown area, Weston and the Merritt Parkway — and headed out in all those directions — the confusing, chaotic and dangerous area remains a transportation Wild West.

Quite a welcome to Westport, for those coming off the Merritt. Quite a potential death trap, for all of us.

Over the years, a variety of recommendations have been floated. They range from traffic lights everywhere, to an English/Massachusetts-style roundabout/rotary, to blowing the whole thing up and starting over. (Just kidding on the last one.) (Kind of.)

Recently, Facebook’s Westport Front Porch page has provided a place to discuss the intersection everyone loves to hate.

Jeff Mitchell used Google Earth View to explain his ideas for improvement. Now he’s shared them with “06880.”

First he showed the current situation:

To orient yourself: Weston Road near Cross Highway is at the lower right; Merritt Parkway Exit 42 is just off the top of the photo, in the upper left. Traffic coming from downtown on Main Street is at the lower left.

Next, Jeff offers Solution #1:

It would make the section of Main Street from near the Merritt to the merge by the old Daybreak Florist 1-way, headed toward town.

That would eliminate 2 hazardous merges — in front of Daybreak, and going to the Merritt — but would make life tough for people living on Wassell Lane.

It would also shunt more traffic into the Weston Road/Easton Road intersection. However, Jeff says, replacing the current blinking yellow light with a full stop light — perhaps for rush hour only — could move traffic more quickly to and from the Merritt.

Jeff’s 2nd solution is this:

It would convert all current merges to 3-way stops. This would eliminate all hazardous merges, while keeping Main Street 2-way.

There would be more “formal” stopping and starting — though perhaps no more than currently occurs, with hesitation over who goes when.

Solution #2 would involve construction, including possibly moving a utility pole.

Jeff met last weekend with Avi Kaner. The 2nd selectman had posted several other complex alternatives on Westport Front Porch. They’d been proposed by state engineers in the past. All would take eons to approve and construct — and may include the contentious taking of land by eminent domain.

Of course, these are state roads. It’s their decision what to do, and when.

“06880” readers: What do you think? Click “Comments” to weigh in on Jeff’s plans — or offer your own.

And if you like it just the way it is, we’d love to know why.

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Posted in People, Places, Transportation

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