Shades Mountain Park

We hope to post our Metro teams soon. In meantime have a great week as school winds down and Memorial Day is just around the corner. We will keep you updated on what’s going on at SMP and of course Fall Registration in August.

“When you play this game twenty years, go to bat 10,000 times, and get 3,000 hits, do you know what that means? You’ve gone zero for 7,000.” — Pete Rose

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Shades Mountain Community Park recently announced the winners of its annual scholarships. The award is intended for former SMP players who have demonstrated outstanding character and academic and athletic success.

Eligible students must have completed their final year of study at a local high school and must have played baseball at the park. Selection criteria includes academic performance, letters of recommendation, an essay and interviews with members of the review committee, which was chaird by Steve Fulmer, Vice President.

The recipients are:

• Adam Byrd
• Ryan Carter
• Aaron Miller
• William Snoddy
• William Stocks
• Grant Wyatt

“These scholarships are something we are blessed to be able to provide,” said SMP Board President Brian Hammonds. “Our Park Board and community volunteers work extremely hard to steward our resources, and I can think of no better way to recognize these terrific kids than for our park to help pay for their future education.

“All are good citizens and literately grew up at our park. Who knows, in 15 to 20 years some of these guys may move back to Hoover and be up here coaching kids of their own. In fact, we want to see that happen.”
 
Shades Mountain Park Inc. (SMP) is a non-profit organization that provides baseball programs for children in central and western Hoover. There are leagues for each age group beginning at age 4. Park facilities – nine fields on 14 acres plus playgrounds, picnic grounds and practice and hitting areas – are maintained and owned by the City of Hoover. The Park is also known as Hoover Sports Park West.

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Congratulations to the 6 YO Yankees, 7 YO Orioles, 8 YO Braves, 9/10 American Rays and 9/10 YO National Braves for winning league titles this week. We encourage everyone to post pictures to our SMP Facebook site.

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Fields #5 and #6 are closed today. All other fields are open, including games on Fields #3, #7 and #8.

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Here are some news and notes from Sunday’s May Board meeting.

• Here are the members elected to Board positions Saturday. The new board will begin terms on July 1. We appreciate all who voted. Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you for serving our kids.
  • Lee Mills, President
  • Will Hawkins, Vice President
  • Kris Holden, Secretary
  • Richard Rayborn, Baseball Commissioner
  • Emily Sikes, Park Mom
  • Ky Gregory, Training Coordinator
  • John Parker, Fundraising Coordinator
  • Steve Renfroe, Scheduling Coordinator
  • Greg Cottrell, Uniform Coordinator
• The Young Guns camps will be held at SMP May 31-June 3 and July 18-21. Camps are coordinated by HHS Coach Rick Davis and presented by the Hoover Baseball Club and Hunter Street Baptist. To register contact Coach Davis at 296-8962 or rdavis@hoover.k12.al.us. If your child likes baseball he/she will love this camp.
• Here are the sites for the upcoming Metro baseball tournaments:
  • 7YO National – Hoover East
  • 7 YO American – Oak Mountain
  • 8 YO National – Homewood
  • 8 YO American – Mountain Brook
  • 9 YO National – Hoover East
  • 9 YO American – Vestavia
  • 10 YO National – Shades Mountain
  • 10 YO American – Shades Mountain
  • 11 YO – Mountain Brook
  • 12 YO – Homewood
  • 13/14 YO – TBA
• Spring scholarships were awarded and will be announced soon.
• We hope everyone enjoyed Park Day Saturday. Special thanks to Kristi Tolbert for all her hard work organizing the event!
• SMP remains financially healthy and hosting April Bash helps support our programs. Thanks to everyone who was patient about the parking limitations that weekend and who helped run the gate.
• The old BBQ hut at front of the park is being renovated and will be used as a Coaches Corner meeting/lockerroom in the future.
• Fall Registration will be Aug. 20-21 at SMP. Practices will begin around Labor Day and play will be in September and October (there are once again five weekends in October so season is an extra week again this year).
• All SMP tournament games will be concluded by May 16th – be sure to go out and catch some of the exciting action in each league as the season winds down.

As always, minutes from previous meetings are posted at www.quickscores.com/shadesmountainpark (under “Downloadable Files”).

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All Star Players that have Monday Night (May 9th) games will be sized on Monday, May 9th. 

All Star Players with Games on Tuesday (May 10th) will be sized Tuesday, May 10th. Anyone that does not have games on Monday or Tuesday will be sized Tuesday.

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Board elections will be held THIS Saturday, May 7th from 10 a.m. till 2 p.m. near the main concession stand. Please find Secretary Kim Fort to cast your vote for the following positions:

• President (officer)
• Vice President (officer)
• Secretary (officer)
• Park Mom
• Training Coordinator
• Fundraising Coordinator
• Uniform Coordinator
• Scheduling Coordinator

Each SMP member family may participate in voting per our bylaws posted here (under “Downloadable Files”), along with job descriptions for each position. Positions take effect June 1. We encourage everyone to vote, and know that this is a working board. Meetings are held the first Monday of each month and a lot of time is needed to run our park as we serve almost 1300 children combined in our Spring and Fall programs.

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League tournaments are now posted on our “Schedules/Results” page. Most tournaments will be played next week. Did you know that, thus far, there is only ONE undefeated team remaining at SMP? That’s the 7YO Orioles. Amazing parity this year compared to previous seasons so next week is a sure bet to be thrilling. Go out and support Hoover High tonight at 6 o’clock vs. Oak Mountain, then be sure to catch some games at SMP this weekend and next week. Good luck to all our teams!

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• The May Board meeting will be tonight at 6 p.m. As always minutes from previous meetings are posted under “Scores/Results” tab on our website (under “Downloadable Files.”).
• SMP fields, as we all know, are terrific, and many of our guests reiterated that fact this weekend. Thank you to the City maintenance crew for all the extra work this weekend, and also John Parker and Lee Mills and their volunteers for all the work coordinating the tournament.
• Board nominations are due at this time and the election will be Saturday. Please volunteer if you would like to serve and be sure to vote. Our park depends on help from volunteer members to support our children.
• Thanks to everyone for being patient with parking this weekend for the April Bash tournament.
• Most of our leagues will begin tournament play next week. Good luck to all the teams. Be sure to catch some games when you can and support all the teams.
• Thank you all for the support, help, donations and getting the word out for the Water Drive.  From Hoover Baseball Club estimates, families donated right at 500 cases of water and some clothing items and other supplies. In less than two days SMP families and guests completely filled the trailer twice and another truck bed. The items were taken to the Hoover Academy Sports which was a drop off point for the Baptist Disaster Relief.  Thank you for the signs, trailers, transportation, tent work, hard work, getting the word out and the WATER. 

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Remember, parking will be extremely limited at SMP this weekend due to the April Bash tournament. Please make every effort to park in the ancillary lot across from Al Seier and walk to your field.

If you can, please drop by Saturday and Sunday 8am-6pm at Shades Mountain Park as we will be having a bottled water drive to help Tuscaloosa families devastated by the tornadoes. The City of Tuscaloosa is having to ration water, these families need our help. Look for a trailer at Shades Mountain Park to drop off your bottled water and THANK YOU in advance! This event is being coordinated through SMP by the Hoover Baseball Club 10U team.

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