{"id":476459,"date":"2026-09-26T13:22:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T13:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/476459\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T13:22:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T13:22:25","slug":"long-beach-baseball-programs-build-community-through-youth-sports-herald-community-newspapers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/476459\/","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\u00a0expand\u00a0baseball in Long Beach and surrounding communities, including among young players from the Five Towns. Through his Beach Bombers travel baseball program and Beach Baseball youth camps, Krywe has helped young ballplayers take to the diamond, including Atlantic Beach resident Will Catania.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Krywe\u00a0(pronounced\u00a0CRY-wee), who turned 47 this week,\u00a0lives and breathes baseball. As a youngster in\u00a0Greigsville, in western New York, he played in\u00a0Little\u00a0League, middle school and high school, and earned a spot\u00a0as a\u00a0center fielder\u00a0on Oswego State University\u2019s team. <\/p>\n

He\u00a0began coaching in the Long Beach School District<\/a> in 2003, has\u00a0done so\u00a0at\u00a0the middle school, junior varsity and varsity levelsand is\u00a0now\u00a0an\u00a0assistant coach of the\u00a0varsity\u00a0squad\u00a0at\u00a0the\u00a0high\u00a0school.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When he moved to Long Island 24 years ago, Krywe\u00a0recalled,\u00a0he noticed\u00a0that\u00a0many kids were migrating to lacrosse during\u00a0the spring\u00a0sports\u00a0season.\u00a0When the pandemic rocked the community, it gave him the\u00a0chance\u00a0to\u00a0flesh out an\u00a0idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBaseball has always been a passion\u00a0of\u00a0mine,\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cI always had the vision of creating a camp to try and bring\u00a0[the]\u00a0love back to Long Beach and put baseball on the map.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His\u00a0baseball camp, open to grades\u00a0three\u00a0through\u00a0eight,\u00a0began\u00a0with about 30\u00a0children and\u00a0has since exploded, hosting\u00a0110\u00a0participants\u00a0across two weeks\u00a0this summer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0the Bombers\u00a0program, which was created during the first year of the camp, has grown from one team to seven,\u00a0ranging\u00a0in age groups\u00a0from 9-and-under\u00a0through 15-and-under\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and\u00a0the summer 15U team\u00a0expands\u00a0to 16U each\u00a0fall.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Bombers squads\u00a0practice twice a week\u00a0and\u00a0play single games,\u00a0or doubleheaders on weekends,\u00a0from\u00a0the spring\u00a0through the\u00a0fall.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u00a0emphasize\u00a0traits\u00a0including\u00a0responsibility,\u00a0punctuality,\u00a0sportsmanship\u00a0and teamwork\u00a0\u2014 which parents, such as Atlantic Beach resident Tom Catania want their sons to learn.<\/p>\n

Catania\u2019s son, Will, 12, was enrolled in Long Beach Little League before discovering the Bombers travel team in the spring of last year. Will is competing in the upcoming fall season.<\/p>\n

This past summer, Will\u2019s team competed at Cooperstown in the Long Island Hot Stove League, which pits youth travel teams against each other. The team lost their first four games in pool play, before winning their last two games. In one game, Catania said, the Bombers beat an \u201celite\u201d team, 12-1, and Will hit a solo home run.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bombers fell to South Florida-based Kings National Select in the first round. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a magical experience,\u201d Catania said. \u201cMany of the teams were all-star teams or from national organizations. We\u2019re basically a town team, so it was a really big accomplishment for these kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Island Park, Jacob Marlin\u2019s\u00a0two sons, Riis, 11, and Lennox, 10, were enrolled in the Island Park Little League before discovering\u00a0Beach Baseball\u00a0in 2023.\u00a0Riis is\u00a0now\u00a0on the 11U team, and Lennox is\u00a0finishing up\u00a0his first year on\u00a0the 10U\u00a0squad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both are students in the Island Park School District,\u00a0and, since the district\u00a0doesn\u2019t have a high school,\u00a0they\u00a0will attend Long Beach High School when they\u00a0reach ninth\u00a0grade \u2014 another\u00a0reason\u00a0Marlin\u00a0enrolled\u00a0his sons\u00a0in the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted\u00a0them to have\u00a0those connections with a lot of the Long Beach kids on the teams before they got to high school,\u201d\u00a0he\u00a0said.\u00a0\u201cAnd I like the fact that\u00a0these kinds of travel organizations\u00a0help\u00a0bring that together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marlin\u00a0said he\u00a0has seen plenty of growth in his sons.\u00a0The camps, he said,\u00a0give children\u00a0the chance\u00a0to\u00a0learn\u00a0the sport while still having fun. Travel baseball, he said, helped create\u00a0structure\u00a0in\u00a0his son\u2019s\u00a0lives.\u00a0\u00a0<\/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\u00a0responsibility and be accountable to your teammates and your coaches,\u201d\u00a0Marlin\u00a0said. \u201cIt\u00a0gives them ways to kind of challenge themselves, rather than just go out and waste time and find things to do.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Krywe reflected on the baseball programs\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0built, he\u00a0expressed his appreciation for\u00a0the coaches for teaching the players how to \u201cplay the game the right way.\u201d He\u00a0recalled the iconic\u00a0line from the 1989\u00a0hit\u00a0movie\u00a0\u201cField of Dreams.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe saying is,\u00a0\u2018If you build it, he will come,\u2019\u201d Krywe said. \u201cSo\u00a0I was thinking, \u2018If you build it, they will come.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For more\u00a0information, visit beachbaseballcamp.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since 2021, Eric Krywe has been on a mission to\u00a0expand\u00a0baseball in Long Beach and surrounding communities, including among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476460,"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-476459","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\/476459","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=476459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}