Middie Way Baseball ‘off to an incredible start’ after hundreds of kids attend five free camps

A Middletown pastor met several Hamilton West Side Little League All-Star players, parents and coaches Saturday night at Great American Ball Park when the team was honored for finishing second in the Little League World Series.

Pastor Lamar Ferrell from Berachah Church dreams that one day a team from Middletown will play in the Little League World Series, but that’s years away since the city has no youth baseball program.

Middletown took a major step this summer to resurrecting baseball when five free Middie Way Baseball Camps were held at Lefferson Park. The last camp was Saturday and it attracted more than 100 kids who received instruction from local players, coaches and volunteers.

“It’s off to an incredible start,” said Ferrell, adding hundreds of kids attended the camps. “It was beyond what we expected. It was so fruitful. What started as a grass roots effort continued to snowball. It was done with excellence.”

Ferrell said Middletown will be affiliated with Little League next year. The goal is to provide local children an opportunity to play baseball in Middletown instead of traveling to surrounding communities, he said.

Ailyn Palmer, a bilingual specialist for the Middletown City School District, never understood why she had to drive her three sons, Nathan, Dylan and Evan, out of the city to play baseball.

“Why doesn’t such a big city have baseball?” she said.

Her two youngest sons attended the Middie Way camps and they’re looking forward to playing baseball in Middletown in 2022.

“It was great,” she said of the camp. “They did a fantastic job.”

Palmer said she will talk to other parents in the city, especially those in the Hispanic community, about signing up their children.

Ferrell said the camps were blessed to have the support of numerous volunteer instructors.

“They saw what baseball was in the past, how it died,” he said. “They want to give back to it.”

Middletown native Kyle Schwarber was scheduled to attend the final camp, but he was traded from Washington to Boston during the season. The Reds played Washington on Saturday night in Cincinnati. Ferrell said Schwarber will be in Middletown this winter and plans to help with a camp.

The Reds Community Fund donated 100 tickets so children and their families could attend Saturday’s game. Ferrell and his son, Luke, delivered the game ball on Middletown Night.

Middletown gave the organization a $10,000 grant to purchase equipment and the Middletown Division of Fire is donating about $15,000, the proceeds from its golf tournament, Ferrell said.

The camps also were sponsored by Premier Health, the school district, Berachah, Reds Community Fund and the Jug.