New Haymarket baseball camp offers instructions with ex-MLB pitcher
By Dan Roem
The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moniyhan once remarked that "If you can’t trust a 10-year-old with a Yankee hat, who can you trust?"There's some sort of great innocence about kids playing baseball that is endearing to parents and adults generation after generation.
For Brian Snyder, getting away from the game didn't mean that he had to leave it all together. Instead, he started his own youth workshop Snyder Baseball in Chantilly, later setting up shop in Manassas. Last October, Snyder decided to "go ahead and do this" with his latest venture at the east side of the Haymarket Sportsflex, opening the doors in late November. He now works with young baseball players throughout western Prince William County.
The former Major League Baseball pitcher, who played for the Seattle Mariners in 1985 and Oakland Athletics in 1989 before retiring, came back to Northern Virginia after his own playing days ended so he could work on teaching youth the fundamentals of the game.
"I didn't do it as long as I would have liked to at the Major League level, but I did get there," said Snyder.One of the most important lessons he said he learned through baseball is how to fail.
"There no other place in life where you can have a success rate of 30 percent and be successful," said Snyder.
While he later reckoned that other sports, like hockey, teach similar lessons, he pointed out that what he learned from failure is how to stay positive and learned teamwork.
Regarding the kids that sign up for his camps, Snyder explained that western Prince William is ideal demographically and is a "vibrant" community.
"We're hoping to not just be for baseball but a community place," said Snyder, emphasizing that his business will be focusing on "alternate sports" too as it develops.
During the summer, Snyder Baseball is home to baseball camps and private lessons Snyder gives with players on a one-on-one basis. Trisha Solomon's son Tyler could be seen this past Monday batting off of a tee into a net with numbers 1-6 marked inside of six quadrants on a target. Snyder dissected the youngster's stance, focusing some of his efforts just on Solomon's feet.
"He immediately connects with them," said Trisha of Snyder as she stood in a lounge next to the facility's green turf. "I saw a sparkle and something in my son's eye that I hadn't seen before with Snyder.""I just really enjoy watching kids work at something and be able to feel that success.They know they've accomplished something," said Snyder. "There's a lesson learned there, that you're going to reap the benefits" from working hard.
Locally, Snyder is well connected with baseball organizations ranging from Gainesville District Little League to Battlefield High School as one of his staffers, Dave Carroll, is the BHS pitching coach. Snyder said he remembered when Carroll attended his alma mater of Chantilly High School in the late 1980s and the two have been connected since.
Snyder mentioned that pitching coaches actually make for pretty good hitting instructors because "they probably spend more time analyzing flaws of hitters than anyone does."
Unlike a "typical, midwestern, grassroots town where everybody plays baseball and football and baseball," Snyder said, Northern Virginia is much more ethinically diverse with transients from all over the globe. That means there are always newcomers to the area that may not be familiar with baseball, giving Snyder a unique opportunity to work with kids who come from backgrounds where baseball is and isn't a big deal.
"We have the responsility to expose people in a positive way to baseball and see the benefit of the game," said Snyder.
More information about Snyder Baseball can be found at http://www.snyderbaseball.com.