If you are looking forward to another season of Danville Dans baseball at Danville stadium, why not take a look at some other college age players this coming Thursday (April 24th) evening? At 7 PM, the first pitch will be thrown as a club team from Illinois State takes on a club team from Purdue.
Dans Co-Owner Rick Kurth says club teams on campus, especially in Illinois and Indiana, are becoming quite popular. They are made up of players that may not be playing on scholarship; but they have a lot of baseball in their backgrounds and want to keep playing the game. In fact, Kurth says his son played on such a team at North Carolina. And the coach of North Carolina’s Division One team even gave them a little bonus.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: At North Carolina, the coach there was good enough to give them old baseball uniforms; that they could wear representing North Carolina. I assume they probably do the same thing at these other schools too.
Kurth says he was contacted by the Purdue club team, as they were looking for a good “middle point” between the two campuses. Kurth says, who knows? Perhaps Danville Stadium could someday be home to a club team tournament.
Purdue first baseman Max Magteucci says club baseball has a governing body, the NCBA (National Club Baseball Association). He says you’ll find everything from former high school players, to some that played college ball at smaller schools.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: We have a lot of guys that played high school ball, and then had offers to D-3 schools, but really wanted to go to a big school and maintain their academics. And then we also have players that played in D-3 ball, or played D-1; and then transferred to Purdue to get their degree, and still want to play baseball.
Admission to Thursday evening’s game is free.
