Cranbury-Plainsboro LL making positive changes

By: Rich Fisher
   The Cranbury-Plainsboro Little League has been making slow but sure improvements over the years, but lately those improvements have been fast but sure.
   "I actually think this is our biggest jump," said league information Bill Persons. "The board really didn’t think of it that way when we were doing it, but I guess when you look at the whole package, it’s the biggest jump we’ve ever made."
   The new implementations are evident from both administrative and player development standpoints.
   In the player development phase, C-PLL extended its program to 7-year-old age groups this past fall, fielding a 7-year-old baseball team of 15 players.
   "We played games from teams with other towns," Persons said. "With that age group, we try to introduce some of the drills and structure we typically use for older teams. It’s basically more of an instructional experience for them.
   "We also have more off-season clinics through the whole fall and winter for baseball and softball. We had (former Major Leaguer) Steve Braun come down and run a clinic, we’ll get one where we have high school teams doing the drills with the boys.
   "We’ll also have additional clinics for softball. They’re getting instruction from travel teams and several area coaches."
   Players aren’t the only ones learning some lessons.
   "We’ve got an umpire feedback and umpire training initiative going on, so we can train the umpires that we have in the league," Persons said. "Kids who are too old to play can start umpiring for us. That started last season, but I don’t think the fruits of it will be seen until this season."
   Off the field, the latest upgrade has been with the registration. For the first time, parents can register their children on-line, rather than having to come in to register personally.
   "We tried the on-line for the fall, just to register, but you couldn’t pay with a credit card," Persons said. "Now we’ve teamed up with a service that teams with little leagues, and you can pay by credit card, do the whole process on-line, which means anybody can do it whenever they want. You can also get a lot of your questions answered on line."
   The league has also gotten more recognition for itself by hosting several District 12 tournaments.
   "We’ve been expanding our visibility within District 12, which is kind of a point of pride," Persons said. "People walk up to me with compliments about the quality of the job we did and the quality of the fields. They really like the complex (Community Park)."
   Of course, none of the progress would be possible without a number of volunteers. Persons initiated the expansion of the 7-year-old fall team, Dave Andres incorporated the Umpire Development program, and Laurie Solomon, Carlos De La Rosa and George Tarantino have taken a large role in setting up the extended player development programs and clinics.
   Registration for next year is now underway (see Sports Briefs).