Less than a week before Christmas and the exact day of winter’s official beginning is not exactly the time of year one has in mind when thinking baseball. That said, for New Canaan High School baseball’s varsity head coach Mitch Hoffman, there’s no time like the present to bring together New Canaan baseball’s past, present and future.
On Saturday, Hoffman will host a baseball clinic for youth players of all ages. The clinic is particularly special as it will be headlined by New Canaan’s first major league player, Curt Casali of the Tampa Bay Rays. In addition to Casali, the clinic will be run by many former Rams who are now playing at the collegiate level.
“Curtis is definitely the main attraction,” Hoffman told NewCanaanite.com. “He’s a celebrated athlete playing at the major league level. A number of the alum like Danny Rajkowski (UCONN), Matt Toth (Trinity College), Andrew Casali (UMBC) and Casey Ouellette (University of Bridgeport) are coming back to help where they started.”
Maddox Hoffman throws out the first pitch at a 2013 NCHS game. Credit: Terry Dinan
Bridging the gap from the youth league up through high school has been one of Hoffman’s main priorities since taking over the Rams program in 2010, and something in which he has a vested personal, as well as professional, interest.
“It’s all about a program,” Hoffman said. “I think of it as a family. I have a son in the youngest years of the program, and I coach the oldest years. Taking that from the bottom to the top and having the alum come together is very important.”
A seminal moment in the program’s history occurred in 2013 when the Rams, led by Andrew Casali and Casey Ouellette, won the school’s first state championship in 63 years. For the players on that team, a chance to connect with the past while writing their own history provided an opportunity to plan for the future of New Canaan baseball.
The Rams win the 2013 State Championship. Credit: Sue Moran
“It’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Hoffman said. “It’s just the start of what baseball has to offer the town of New Canaan. If you celebrate and bring all these factions together, it makes the program that much better. We can teach stealing bases and throwing pitches and hitting but in order to make the program better—getting the community involved, winning state championships and teaching the kids to believe—you have to do it this way.”
And with a role model such as Curt Casali—a New Canaan kid who was able to realize his dream of playing in the major leagues—it makes the big leagues seem that much closer to this town’s youth league players today.
The clinic is open to all New Canaan baseball players, and will run from 4 to 6pm on Saturday, December 20th at Bobby Valentine’s Sports Academy, 72 Camp Ave., Stamford. Cost is $100 per player. RSVP to mitch@blockslearning.com. All proceeds benefit the NCHS baseball program.