Heather
I always enjoy reading your post, thanks.
The best and most important years of my baseball life, they were also the years I learned and developed the most, were three years at a baseball camp.
The camp was Ozark Boys Camp, near Mt Ida, Arkansas
It was a Christian camp started by a couple of ex-major/minor league players from Houston.
The camp was in two sessions of 6 weeks each during the summer.
While we had fishing, float tripping (Washita river), basketball, swimming and other things, we played baseball every day for six weeks.
Each cabin had 8 campers and they were divided into age groups. There were three leagues, minor, little league and teen-age leagues and each cabin representaed a major league team---we even got authentic major league caps.
Every kid, no matter his skill level, played every game. The staff were the pitchers and umpires. They even threw curve balls in little league.
I always thought that would be the ideal set-up for community leagues.
When I went up one year as a Jr. Councelor, we got up a game at the end of the year when parents visited. We played the Counselors and Staff.
I got to bat against Allie Reynolds who had just retired from the yankees. He struck me out in three pitches---but that is another story.
Blessings