A gaggle of boys between the ages of nine and 17 swarmed Spillane Field early on Tuesday, July 30, high stepping, toe-touching and lunging back and forth across the verdant grass. 

The crew was warming up for a morning of baseball instruction from players and coaches with the Wareham Gatemen. 

The Gatemen, a team in the collegiate summer Cape Cod League, offered six one-week clinics to local children during the team’s summer season this year. 

“The kids have had a lot of fun,” said Assistant Coach and Camp Coordinator Cody Doyle. 

During the last week of the clinics, which started Monday, July 29, the Gatemen focused on older kids and more advanced skills. 

On Tuesday, July 30, Doyle and other Gatemen coaches and players worked to drill different aspects of the game, including how to lead away from first base, and to show them the mindset of players at the highest levels of competition. 

Galen Revell, 13, said it was “the best camp ever.”

He learned how he “shouldn’t be turning my body with leads,” adding that he hoped to play for the Dodgers when he grew up. 

Quinn Boyle, 13, wasn’t sure what his future held, but he agreed with Revell’s statement that the camp was the best ever. 

Boyle played baseball because “it’s pretty fun, and I’m decently good,” he said. 

The coaches and players at the clinic made sure the kids paid attention to the finer points of the game. 

“There’s not one way to do things, but details matter, so do it the way we taught you,” Doyle told the assembled kids, as they shuffle-stepped a set number of paces away from a mock first base. 

However, the length of a shuffle-step stride wasn’t the most important piece of advice Doyle had for the young players. 

“I think it’s just having fun — [that’s] really what it’s about,” he said. 

Doyle said baseball is “a game of failure” — it’s easy to feel down and to struggle, which makes it more important to have fun and enjoy it, even at a high level, he said.

Pitcher Darin Horn, a Gatemen who hails from Coastal Carolina University, agreed. 

“Just have fun,” Horn said. “Baseball’s supposed to be a fun game.”

Horn remembers attending lots of camps like the Gatemen’s in his youth, and said it’s “awesome” getting to teach the kids in Wareham throughout the summer. 

“They’re the younger generation of this game,” and will hopefully fill the Gatemen’s shoes someday, Horn said.