Santa Clara County
’s baseball community will gather to honor its best and
brightest, the local people and organizations that lead the way to
success in the sport at every level — from youth leagues to high
school and college to the professional ranks — at its annual Hot
Stove Banquet on Feb. 3.
Santa Clara County’s baseball community will gather to honor its best and brightest, the local people and organizations that lead the way to success in the sport at every level — from youth leagues to high school and college to the professional ranks — at its annual Hot Stove Banquet on Feb. 3.
This year, it will truly be Morgan Hill baseball’s time to shine.
To be honored at this year’s event will be longtime Morgan Hill PONY baseball board president and coach Roy Jackson, who retired last year nearly two decades heading up the local organization, will be presented with a Meritorious Service Award; the Morgan Hill PONY baseball organization, which has grown by leaps and bounds into one of the area’s most successful youth groups under Jackson’s guidance, and will be recognized as the Outstanding Amateur Organization; and former Live Oak High standout pitcher Ryan Muller, a former MH PONY player himself, who has been selected as the 2003 High School Player of the Year.
Jackson was the standard bearer for MH PONY baseball since the mid-1980s, when he began coaching his oldest son in the local youth league. Two years later, Jackson was elected president and spent the next two decades building the organization from a few hundred kids to more than 1,000 at its peak a few years ago. Laboring with the youth league long after his own kids had moved on and staying on as a coach for two MH PONY teams even after his retirement as board president, Jackson is truly representative of the best that community volunteerism represents. The selflessness with which Jackson gave of his time for so long, and the thousands of young lives he touched and influenced, reflect the true legacy of youth sports.
The organization Jackson helped build, MH PONY baseball, will be honored partly because of its success on the field last summer – when several all-star teams advanced to regional championship tournaments – and partly because of the quality that has been instilled by a dedicated community. All the parents and other volunteers who helped make MH PONY baseball what it has become, and what it will continue to be, should take a well-deserved bow for their efforts.
Finally, the local baseball product, Muller, who will miss the event because he will be playing for the USF Dons in their season-opener, represents the end result of the foundation that all those volunteers laid. To be sure, not every youth who plays MH PONY baseball will succeed the way Muller has but the organization gives them the opportunity to try. And for that, local baseball folks should justly be proud.
After all, it’s truly all about the kids.
The Santa Clara County Hot Stove Banquet will be held Feb. 3 at the San Jose GI Forum. Tickets are $35, no-host cocktails begin at 6 p.m., followed by dinner at 7 p.m. and the awards ceremony at 8 p.m. Details: (408) 446-3443.
