EFFINGHAM — The distance from Effingham to Cooperstown, N.Y., is 873 miles.
Thirteen hours and eight minutes, and for the Effingham Heaters 12 and under team, it was worth it.
The Heaters, coached by Jake Nelson, experienced Cooperstown in Early June. The team got the opportunity to play six games over four days.
“I was really proud of the way they represented,” Nelson said. “We came out the first couple of games and I don’t know if they were amped up, but they were ready to hit.
“After the first two games, we were sitting on top of the leaderboard, so people were curious about this little town team.”
Eleven players make up the Heaters 12 and under team, which ended 4-2.
Reed Schumacher is an outfielder, second baseman and pitcher. Eli Bales is a second baseman and third baseman.
Gabe Traub is a shortstop and pitcher. Brody Nelson is a third baseman, shortstop and pitcher. Bryce Hayes is a pitcher, first baseman and outfielder. Roman Martin is a catcher and pitcher. Calvin Beck is an outfielder, third baseman and pitcher. Kael Koeberlein is an outfielder and second baseman. Baylor Matusus is a first baseman and outfielder. Justice Bridges is a first baseman and outfielder. Jaxon Having is an outfielder and second baseman and Cooper Volpi is a shortstop and pitcher.
Three players on the team commented on their favorite moments from the trip.
Martin said, “I liked how you get to stay in the dorm with your friends and play baseball all week.”
Volpi added, “Playing whiffle ball with the boys. It was a good environment.”
Traub commented, “Hitting home runs and coming back from nine (down to win).”
Nelson said everything came about when the team was making the schedule and wanted to find a trip somewhere over the summer for the team to get together and bond.
“We were looking for a good, fun, quality trip to take the boys on like we used to when we were kids,” Nelson said. “Three, four-day long trips, go hang out, bonding experiences and one of our parents came up to me and brought up Cooperstown as an idea. We ran it through everybody and everybody was on board.”
From there, the team started fundraising.
Nelson said the main form of that was a music bingo event held at the Effingham VFW.
“We got pretty lucky with the fundraising,” Nelson said. “We put together a music bingo event, which we’re going to do again for next year. We had it at the VFW and had a bunch of auction items. It was a really fun event.”
Nelson said the team was in Cooperstown for nearly one week. Games started on the eighth and ended on the 11th.
Prior to arriving in New York, Nelson said a few people stopped in Pittsburgh and then Niagara Falls.
“A few of us decided to go to Pittsburgh first and stay the night there,” Nelson said. “We couldn’t have gotten luckier. We were already on a trip of a lifetime, but we stopped, and it was supposed to rain all night, but the rain left the forecast, and we looked online, and Pittsburgh was in town playing the Dodgers with Paul Skenes on the mound. There were four or five of us that went and watched that and then made the trip up to Niagra Falls before we made it to Cooperstown.
“We were there for pretty much a week with all the check-in processes. We got there early and got checked in. Didn’t have to fight the crowds.”
When the team first arrived at the location, it was a sight to see.
“They got the banners and flags everywhere. There were 22 fields spread out across and it sits down in like a mountain range, so everywhere you look to your left and right,” Nelson said. “It was about as pretty as it could be.”
The Heaters opened play with a 15-3 win over SF Contenders 12U Black. Then, a 19-0 win over Houston Apollos Cooperstown and a 9-1 victory over PVS Raiders 12U on Sunday. The team then picked up a 24-16 win over Iron BC Cooperstown 12U before losses to the Tallahassee Heat and PV Waves 12U.
“It was pretty stiff,” said Nelson of the competition. “They got to see some crazy stuff, some teams like us, playing from Phoenix, an academy team out of Pittsburgh, South Florida and then we ran into a couple of elite teams, so we got to see what the best 12 kids in Tallahassee looked like and they were a handful.”
After the team returned from the trip, Nelson said they felt like celebrities.
“When we got home, walking into buildings, I think I walked into Cardinal Golf Course and somebody pulled me to the side that I didn’t even know watched baseball and said they had it pulled up on their TV at home,” he said. “We got it from everywhere.”