Monday Hi-Five with the Maple Heights Youth Baseball League

The Maple Heights Youth Baseball League opens its third season of baseball under the guidance of David and Devon Moss this week.

The league was founded in 1958 and ceased operations after2016. The Moss brothers played in the league from tee ball onward and were disheartened by the league’s absence. They resurrected the league with organizational help from their mother, Carol, in 2022 after a year of planning, fundraising, and recruiting, balancing the effort with their own college studies.

“The whole point is that we want to make a change in our community and we see it happening,” said David, “We do it for the kids and we get joy when we see a kid really accelerate their skills.”

“We focus on the children and teaching them the fundamentals of baseball,” Devon said, “So I feel like we’re giving them enough to give them a leg up in the future.”

As they begin the 2024 season, David has graduated with a finance degree from Notre Dame College and Devon continues his studies. Carol continues to help her sons manage the effort, but is happy to let David and Devon take on more of the responsibilities.

“With David’s graduation from college, I’m able to relinquish some of my duties,” Carol said, “But I’m 100% behind them and supporting their ventures in the league. They’ve been able to broaden the program with a lot of community outreach in Maple Heights and Garfield Heights.”

Each season has seen growth in the number of players in the league and the ages for boys and girls to participate. This year, the league has 4 divisions from tee ball at age 4 to kid pitch at age 16. Over 130 players are registered for the season that will finish in late July.

“They are taking children at all levels and willing to work with all of them. Devon has taken a Spanish speaking course because we are bringing in some kids who are Spanish speakers,” Carol said, “The league is growing by leaps and bounds and have that positive presence in the community. MyCom has been a strong presence and a great partner to help the league grow.”

“I know we are making a change each day and sometimes it’s easy to see the change and sometimes it’s hard,” David said, “It’s great that we’ve gotten this strong and I would love more funding support to achieve some larger goals.”

Those larger goals include increasing volunteer collaboration and retention. “For a lot of these kids, this is their first year playing, Devon said, “I would like to get a grant to be able to pay the coaches and with that, it would help their league in the long-run and there would be more people who are dedicated. We would love to have more volunteers and a true community effort to help every child learn and play the game for free.”

“Just the other day, a family was telling her that they started off with tee ball all and their children went to the same school but didn’t know each other and now they are friends,” Carol said, “They consider themselves “brothers” and went on to do football together and are back for baseball together and now the families are friends and making lifetime friendships.”