Training is cancelled tonight.

Hi folks

I was sure we'd only have gloom, but as I wrote this the rain started, so we're going to cancel training tonight for both Sluggers and Jnr Sluggers.

Tomorrow is our last game before Christmas. Here's looking forward to a fun game in the morning sunshine!

Our season restarts with training on Watangi Day, Friday 6th February,  with our first game

Paul.

Baseball portraits = awesomeness!

Hi folks

If you're looking for a fantastic record of your child's baseball journey, or just a cool keepsake or Christmas pressie, you can't go past Talia Sain photographer.  One of our HP Hawks family, she takes fantastic shots of your child showing their style on the baseball diamonds.

Get in touch with Talia at hello@taliasianphotographer.co.nz.

No game today.

Hi folks

It's wet out there and looks like the rain isn't far away so we'll cancel our games today.

Here's hoping the weather improves enough the kids get a chance to have a run around outside.

Cheers,

Paul

GAME ON!!!

Hi folks

As best as I can discern, we'll get a moring of KiwiBall awesomosity in!  So we'll see you all down at the diamonds at 8:30am ready to go.

Bear in mind, it will be damp and a little windy, so make sure you're little champions have something warm to wear, and perhaps a towel to help dry up or to sit on.

Our games this morning will be:

Diamondbacks v Indians
Blue Jays v Pirates
and the old firm matchup of Yankees v Dodgers

See you soon!

Paul

ARRGGHH!!!

Hi folks

We're going to cancel tonight's training.

Apologies for the late notice. With the weather outlook tomorrow I hoped we could get something in tonight, but I'm at the diamonds and the showers have started and it looks like it's only going to get worse.

I'll post here again in the morning if we cancel. That notice will be posted by 8am at the latest.

Cheers,
Paul.

Opening day draw

Hi folks

A great start for our gear night and training tonight. HP Sluggers and Junior Sluggers, you looked awesome out there!

The opening day draw for tomorrow (Saturday) is:

Diamond 1 Yankees v Dodgers
Diamond 2 Pirates v Blue Jays
Diamond 3 Indians v Diamondbacks

See you at 8:30am for training time, 9:00am for first swing!

Cheers,
Paul

GAME ON!!!

Hi folks

I hope everyone is ready to go tomorrow night at 5:30pm down at the diamonds.   Thank you to all those who have got their fees paid in - we really appreciate it!

See you tomorrow.

Paul

KiwiBall muster and training times adjusted!

Hi folks

We've changed the times for the muster and regular season trainings as follows:

Muster:
Friday 23rd October, 5:30 - 6:30pm

Regular season training:
From Friday 30th October
Junior Sluggers 5:30 - 6:15pm
Sluggers 5:30 - 6:30pm (or alternative as advised by team coach).

Cheers

Paul

Welcome to HP Kiwi Ball 2015 / 16 season!

Welcome once again to the unofficial home of the HP Hawks' (Howick-Pakuranga Baseball Club) Kiwi Ball program!

Registration for Kiwi Ball at HP Baseball for the 2015/16 season is now open! Club registration site here.

Where are we:  Lloyd Elsmore Park, Pakuranga.  Entrance off Cascades Road (opposite Cascades Fruit and Vege / Cascades Road shops). Here's a map!

Ages:
HP Junior Sluggers grade ages 5 - 6 (although we do accept 4 year olds turning 5 during the season)
HP Sluggers grade aged 8 or under as of 1 January 2016
Players aged 9 as of 1 January 2016 play U11s baseball.

Please note that due to player numbers we may need to move players up or down between these grades in order to get complete teams.  We'll do our best to work with the parents and players to make this work for everyone, but we do ask for your understanding as it's often a no win situation putting the teams together where the player numbers don't cooperate.

Season runs: 31 October - March 2016 with a break over the Christmas period.

Season dates (provisional):  31 October - 12 December 2015, 6 February - 19 March 2016 (14 weeks)

Games:  Saturday mornings 8:30am - 10am

Training times:
 Junior Sluggers - Friday 5:30 - 6:15pm
 Sluggers - Friday 5:30 - 6:30pm (or alternative time - team coach to advise)

Cost: $90 for the first player (discounts apply if you have more than one player registering for the season).

In order to help the Club with collection of fees, registration fees must be paid before the player will be allocated to a team for the season.  Our fee covers all costs of putting a player on the diamond (ie cap, shirt, affiliation fees) on a break even basis.  As such, we can't provide discounts for players wanting to play only part of a season, nor can we issue refunds once the season has started as the costs have already been incurred and can't otherwise be recovered.

What you need:  Shoes/sneakers, socks and undies - we supply everything else! (ie pants, shirts, baseball caps and all playing equipment).  Every player is even given their own soft core baseball, and the shirts and caps are for the players to keep - you only need return the baseball pants at the end of the season.  Running/casual shoes are acceptable (at this age we don't want kids wearing cleats so as to avoid injuries to other players), but no jandals, sandals or bare feet please.

There are often changes in the lead up to the season, so please check back here often leading in to the season to get the most up to date information possible.  We will have a parents meeting at the muster on the 23rd of October.

Our first training night will be our muster on Friday 23rd October at 5:30pm.  We'll start off with a parent meeting and then run through some drills.  Our next training night will be our regular training night as detailed above.

Please don't be afraid to visit and like our facebook account:

HP Kiwi Ball facebook page

Also, here is a link to the HP Hawks main website:

HP Hawks

If you listen carefully, you will hear it:  Summer is coming....

Edits:

21 October
 - corrected date of parents meeting to Friday, 23rd October.

15 October
 - changed training times
 - added muster/parents meeting details

A taster to get you started...

Hi folks

We're not far away now.  If you're looking for ideas on things to do with the kids while you're waiting for the season to start, or once we get going, here are a couple of old posts that can get you started:

A couple of tips....

Hitting stuff is fun

We'll see you folks soon!

Make our diamonds beautiful!

Hi everyone

We have baseball diamonds, but they need work!

We have working bees down at the diamonds from 9am Saturday and Sunday for each of the next three weeks.

Baseball diamond maintenance is a fundamental part of the baseball experience.  Come on down and get a handle on what goes in to preparing our diamonds for the season ahead.

See you there!

Cheers,
Paul

Registration event at The Fieldhouse tomorrow!

Hi folks

There's a registration event at The Fieldhouse batting cages on Ben Lomand Cres (off Cascasdes Rd, Pakuranga) from 10am to 12pm tomorrow morning.  For anyone with questions they want answered in person, or just to register the old fashioned way, come down and see us!

facebook.com/event/HP Hawks registration event

Kiwi Little Leaguer gets a NZ Herald write up

The Kiwi kid that played in the Little League World Series for the Pennsylvania team representing the US vs Tokyo, Japan representing the World gets a write up in the NZ Herald here.

Well done Chayton!

Baseball NZ send under 13 teams overseas every year.  For our young Kiwi Ball players, they can aspire to make these representative teams in just a few years time.  And if they don't quite make the grade, they get to play ball at the greatest baseball club in the country - so it's win : win!

Little League World Series!

I hope you've been lucky enough to catch some of the Little League action on ESPN over the last couple of weeks!

For a touch of NZ flavour, Kiwi player Chayton Krauss plays for the contending Mid Atlantic representative from Pennsylvania. He and his team have been on fire, and it's been great to see his Dad flying the Silver Fern in the stands!

If you get a chance, check it out!  Chayton's team plays a big game at 12pm  this afternoon NZ time vs Texas. The big boys are on straight after with the Chicago Cubs vs San Francisco Giants.

UPDATE:

Pennsylvania (Mid Atlantic) won a nail biter in their double elimination game vs Texas (South West), and will play in the US Championship final tomorrow, again facing off against Texas.  The winner will go on to face the winner of the International Championship in what looks like being a belter between Tokyo, Japan and the power of Baja California, Mexico.

For games, updates and details, here's a link to the Little League World Series schedule..  All games are being broadcast live on ESPN, Sky channel 60.

All good things come to an end (and then start again in 6 months!!!)

Hi folks

Well, as the Starks say, winter is coming, and that means the end of another wonderful season of T ball.  Firstly, here are some housekeeping matters:

Baseball Pants

Please return your childs baseball pants either tomorrow night at training to your coach, or at the game on Saturday.  For the final game the players will be able to wear track pants by preference, or shorts.  

If you cannot return them at either opportunity, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get them to me at the prizegiving on Sunday.  These pants are in relatively short supply (as some of you well know) and we need to make sure we have them all back ready to give out to a new season of T ballers next summer.  

If you have any problems getting the pants back at one of these opportunities, please contact me via thie comments or email.

Remember, the shirts and caps are yours to keep so the players can all show off to their mates until they join up next season.

Prizegiving

For those that haven't heard, prizegiving has been shifted to 11am to accomodate both our Premier teams playing each other in the Auckland Baseball final at 1pm.  The prizegiving is being held at the Pakuranga Rugby Club clubrooms (they're the rooms across the rugby fields behind the baseball diamond).

Premier Baseball Final

As noted, the HP Hawks two Premier Men's teams, the Blackhawks and the Redhawks have made it through to the Premier Club finals, to be held on the No.1 diamond at Lloyd Elsmore Park.  Please take the opportunity to wander over after the prizegiving and give your budding superstars a chance to see the best baseball players in our Club (and in the country) warm up and display their skills.

Thank you!!!!

Finally, a big thank you to absolutely everyone involved with the T ball season this year. The coaches, for their tremendous hard work and patience, and for helping get our kids out on the diamond each week getting better and better.  Thank you too to all of you parents that dedicate yourselves to getting up early on a Saturday morning to allow your children to learn and engage of the great game of baseball.  And thank you to all the hard work of the unseen volunteers running the Club and allowing us to do what we do.  

Particular thanks to the tuck shop ladies, to Mike Long, our gear man, and to Darryl Fairclough, our head groundsman.  These folks put hours and hours into allowing us to play our game, so if you see them on Saturday or Sunday, please take a moment to really thank them for all their time and hard work.

Tell your friends, neighbours, cousins and school mates, T ball is AWESOME!  Lets make our T ball program bigger than Ben Hur.  Spread the word and lets keep growing our great Club and great game.

Best regards and see you this weekend and next season!


Paul Wansbone

Training to go ahead tonight except for Dodgers/Pirates 6 March 2015

Hi folks

It's not the finest weather of the summer, but hopefully the rain will hold off enough that we can have a bit of a run around for the teams tonight.

Dan has advised that he's pulled the pin on the Dodgers and Pirates training tonight and will see you folks tomorrow.

Take care all.

Paul

T Ball restarts Sat 7th Feb!

Hey T Ball fans! 

Just an FYI that T Ball will recommence on Saturday 7th February. 

As Friday 6th is Waitangi Day, there will be no practice that day to leave you all free to celebrate this great country of ours.  :)

Take care all and see you soon!

Oceania Baseball U18 Champs

Hi folks

A reminder that this Friday through to Monday you can get to watch top quality baseball as the NZ U18 team take on their Aussie and Guam equivalents in a battle to qualify for the IBAF World U18 Champs later this year in Japan.  The game schedule can be found here.

For those that can't make the game, Sky Sport are covering both games of the NZ double header on Saturday on SS2 at 11:30am and 3:30pm.

A great excuse to break out the hotdogs and popcorn (or toasted sandwiches and piklets) and catch a bunch of our HP Hawks boys representing the silver fern with pride!

Baseball kicking into high gear!

Hey folks.

Happy new year everyone!  Wow, some awesome weather out there to kick off the new year.

While T ball and junior baseball are both still a couple of weeks away, there is a bunch of stuff coming up in the next few weeks for our budding superstars (for full details see www.baseballnewzealand.com ):

We have the MLB Playing with the Pros roadshow hitting Lloyd Elsmore on 19th January It is a great chance to get the kids some fantastic advice and help them advance their game further.

NZ U18s have a qualifying tournament vs Aussie and Guam (23 - 26th Jan, McCleod Park, Te Atatu) to qualify for the IBAF World Championship in Japan in August.  It was watching the U15s in the same qualifying tournament a few years ago that got me hooked on baseball.  I can't wait to get out there and watch our own home grown HP players representing NZ at this high standard of baseball!

Finally, Manager of the Milwauke Brewers, Ron Roenicke, will be holding a FREE!!! clinic at our very own Lloyd Elsmore Park on 30 January.  Register through the Baseball NZ website.

A final reminder, T ball will start up again on the 7th February. I look forward to seeing you all then.

Take care!
Paul.