Ball players stay in game at Barone’s Baseball Pitching and
Hitting
After hurling a complete game three-hit shutout in late July for
Triple-A Albuquerque
–the first nine-inning complete game of his career – Hollister’s
Daniel Barone was placed on the disabled list with elbow
tendonitis.
Prior to last season, the San Benito High graduate had always
been healthy, not once placed on the DL. But stiffness in his back,
and then elbow tendonitis, sidelined the right-handed pitcher on
two different occasions last season
– the latter of which kept him out of his final four starts of
the season.
Ball players stay in game at Barone’s Baseball Pitching and Hitting
After hurling a complete game three-hit shutout in late July for Triple-A Albuquerque –the first nine-inning complete game of his career – Hollister’s Daniel Barone was placed on the disabled list with elbow tendonitis.
Prior to last season, the San Benito High graduate had always been healthy, not once placed on the DL. But stiffness in his back, and then elbow tendonitis, sidelined the right-handed pitcher on two different occasions last season – the latter of which kept him out of his final four starts of the season.
How quickly things can change.
“Right when you think everything is going well, things happen,” said Barone, who began last year in big league camp with the Florida Marlins. “I got hurt twice this year. I did everything to prevent it and it still happened.”
Now in the offseason teaching Hollister’s youth – and anyone else, for that matter – at Barone’s Baseball Pitching and Hitting Lessons, Barone is stressing the importance of how everything before the pitch is just as important as what comes after it.
Mechanics. Balance. Vision.
And if you think you’re gonna hop on the mound without warming up first, without stretching first, you haven’t learned anything just yet.
“You need to stretch before you do anything,” Barone said. “We need to get ready and warm up before we even touch the ball.”
Tucked behind Running Rooster, Barone’s Baseball sits on the corner of South and Washington streets in Hollister. Behind two white metal garage doors lies just enough room for a batting cage and a pair of pitching mounds.
“It’s not much,” Barone said. “This is our little baseball heaven.”
Teaming up with San Benito High grad Kalev Betancourt, who is also an assistant coach at Monterey Peninsula College, the two have been doling out the lessons for three years now.
They’re in a different building from last year, when Barone and Betancourt’s Industrial Way location was shut down by city staff after it was determined the two were operating a commercial business in an industrial area.
But both Barone and Betancourt are excited in their new digs, and have been open for business for the last two months.
“It’s awesome. I get more excited than the kids get coming here,” Barone said. “The kids that do come in that want to work, it’s exciting to see that they have the same dreams to play baseball.”
San Benito High sophomore Steven Hernandez, 15, comes in everyday after school. On Tuesday he devoted one hour to pitching, and despite hurling off the mound with high velocity as well as working up a sweat in the cold December conditions, Hernandez isn’t even a pitcher.
He’s a catcher, but it’d be tough to tell with the way he throws.
“I just like baseball. I can’t get enough of it,” Hernandez said. “I’ve learned a lot, all the mechanics, like the tiny little things that if you can do, they can’t hit [the ball].”
Hernandez spent another 20 minutes in the cage taking a few cuts with Betancourt, who could be playing for the top league in Germany come April. Despite handling the catching duties as well as the hitting at Barone’s Baseball – “I’m not the greatest hitter in the world,” Barone said, “so I gave it to someone who knew what they were doing” – Betancourt would mainly pitch if he were to play in Germany.
“When we were growing up, we never had something like this,” Betancourt said. “The kids can just come in here and practice. If you love the game as much as me and Daniel do, it’s fun just to be around the game all the time.”
For Barone, he too could be leaving the country as well in January. It’s not up to him, of course, but the 25-year-old pitcher is healthy and is looking to play winter ball in the Dominican Republic.
If that were the case, and if Betancourt went to Germany, the two would find a suitable replacement to run the business in their absence.
But, most assuredly, they’d be back.
“We’re both enjoying it. We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t enjoy it,” Barone said. “I think if I wanted to get away from the game I would, but it’s a passion I have. I’ll do it until it starts to be work to me.”
For pitching lessons, call 801-1922. For hitting lessons, call 801-1233.
