COUNTYWIDE : Academy Goes to Bat for Year-Round Play

Tom Barber wants Ventura County kids to play year-round baseball.

Barber, 33, is owner and director of the B & L Baseball Academy in Oxnard for youths between the ages of 6 and 18.

The program, which has applied for nonprofit status, recently celebrated its first anniversary as a baseball camp designed to keep kids off the streets and away from drugs and gangs, Barber said.

Each youth pays $20 to meet at Durley Park at 800 W. Hill St. in Oxnard once a week to practice baseball fundamentals.

“We’re trying to promote baseball on a year-round basis,” Barber said. “I just felt that the kids need somebody in the community that they can look up to and kind of show them the right way to go.”

The B & L winter league started this month and winds up in November. Then the Sunset Little League, which is operated by the Oxnard Recreation Department, begins registration for its summer program, Barber said. Most of the youths from B & L also participate in Little League, although the two programs operate independently, he said.

The rest of the year, Barber takes the players on excursions to Dodger Stadium and holds two-week intensive training sessions that cost $50 per player. The academy uses all program money for equipment, balls and uniforms, Barber said.

“Anything we can do to promote baseball and keep kids busy . . . that would be one less gang member to worry about,” he said.

Roberta and Tino Novellino of Port Hueneme watched recently as their 12-year-old son, Chris, practiced.

“We searched and searched and this is the only opportunity that we found that kids can play winter baseball,” Tino Novellino said.

Rudy Rodriguez, 12, said he never played organized baseball until he joined B & L. “We learn how to play good in summer camp, and when you go to the other teams you could be good.”

Barber said the idea of a year-round baseball program came to him when he was 19 and team captain of the Sunset Little League senior division all-stars. The Oxnard group was national champion and runner-up to Taiwan in the World Series, which Barber said was the highlight of his Little League career.

For further information about the academy, Barber can be reached at 483-8382.