{"id":469341,"date":"2026-09-19T20:07:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T20:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469341\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T20:07:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T20:07:01","slug":"long-beach-baseball-programs-build-community-through-youth-sports-herald-community-newspapers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469341\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach baseball programs build community through youth sports | Herald Community Newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 2021, Eric Krywe<\/a> has been on a mission to expand baseball in Long Beach and the surrounding communities. Through his Beach Bombers travel baseball program and Beach Baseball youth camps, Krywe has done just that \u2014 giving back to the community and cultivating a love of baseball.<\/p>\n

Krywe (pronounced CRY-wee), who turned 47 this week, lives and breathes baseball. As a youngster in Greigsville, in western New York, he played in Little League, middle school and high school, and earned a spot as a center fielder on Oswego State University\u2019s team. He began coaching in the Long Beach School District in 2003, has done so at the middle school, junior varsity and varsity levels and is now an assistant coach of the varsity squad at the high school.<\/p>\n

When he moved to Long Island 24 years ago, Krywe recalled, he noticed that many kids were migrating to lacrosse during the spring sports season. When the pandemic rocked the community, it gave him the chance to flesh out an idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cBaseball has always been a passion of mine,\u201d he said. \u201cI always had the vision of creating a camp to try and bring [the] love back to Long Beach and put baseball on the map.\u201d<\/p>\n

His baseball camp, open to grades three through eight, began with about 30 children and has since exploded, hosting 110 participants across two weeks this summer.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the Bombers program, which was created during the first year of the camp, has grown from one team to seven, ranging in age groups from 9-and-under through 15-and-under \u2014 and the summer 15U team expands to 16U each fall.<\/p>\n

The Bombers squads practice twice a week and play single games, or doubleheaders on weekends, from the spring through the fall.<\/p>\n

Lido Beach\u2019s Josh Kaufman coaches the 15U team. Kaufman, 48, fields a squad of 13 players, including his son, Ethan, 15. As the program has grown, he said, so has his team\u2019s sportsmanship and energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all mentally tough,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s 35 degrees and raining, or 105 degrees and humid. They\u2019re fine young men, respectful and a good group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both programs, Krywe said, are intended to use baseball as a vehicle for teaching kids life lessons that extend to life outside the baseball diamond. They emphasize traits including responsibility, punctuality, sportsmanship and teamwork \u2014 which parents, such as Island Park resident Jacob Marlin, want their sons to learn.<\/p>\n

Marlin\u2019s two sons, Riis, 11, and Lennox, 10, were enrolled in the Island Park Little League before discovering Beach Baseball<\/a> in 2023. Riis is now on the 11U team, and Lennox is finishing up his first year on the 10U squad.<\/p>\n

Both are students in the Island Park School District, and, since the district doesn\u2019t have a high school, they will attend Long Beach High School when they reach ninth grade \u2014 another reason Marlin enrolled his sons in the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted them to have those connections with a lot of the Long Beach kids on the teams before they got to high school,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I like the fact that these kinds of travel organizations help bring that together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marlin said he has seen plenty of growth in his sons. The camps, he said, give children the chance to learn the sport while still having fun. Travel baseball, he said, helped create structure in his son\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons why I wanted to kind of get them involved in youth sports and travel baseball is that kind of sense of responsibility and be accountable to your teammates and your coaches,\u201d Marlin said. \u201cIt gives them ways to kind of challenge themselves, rather than just go out and waste time and find things to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Krywe reflected on the baseball programs he\u2019s built, he expressed his appreciation for the coaches for teaching the players how to \u201cplay the game the right way.\u201d He recalled the iconic line from the 1989 hit movie \u201cField of Dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe saying is, \u2018If you build it, he will come,\u2019\u201d Krywe said. \u201cSo I was thinking, \u2018If you build it, they will come.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For more informaion, visit beachbaseballcamp.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since 2021, Eric Krywe has been on a mission to expand baseball in Long Beach and the surrounding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[184727,184728,126297,131,184730,133,132,184729],"class_list":["post-469341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-beach-baseball","tag-beach-bombers","tag-eric-krywe","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-baseball-camps","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-long-beach-youth-baseball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}