Author and die-hard baseball fan Jeff Potter can remember when his son, now in college, played Little League baseball, and he can remember when things started to go wrong.
"It hit me like a ton of bricks," Potter said. "I was out to dinner with a few friends of mine after a game and no one was happy. The players, the coaches, the parents -- we had just played a game and nobody was happy."
He said he felt the fun of the game was being sacrificed to the drive to win, seemingly at all costs.
To combat that competitiveness, Potter, who is from Odenton and the author of a 2008 book, "Whatever Happened to Baseball?" founded Potter's Pirates, an under-15 baseball team that concludes its inaugural four-week tour Sunday at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
The team has visited baseball stadiums -- including major and minor league parks -- in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and the boys who play on the team also participate in community service, hold baseball clinics, as they did at a recent stop in Hanover, and are active members of the communities in which they stop.
"He's using this tour to convey the message across ÃÂÃÂ communities that baseball doesn't have to be a cutthroat, win-at-all-cost game," said Rick Sia, whose son plays on the team. "He wants to show that kids can learn fundamentals and succeed without having to win all the time. ÃÂÃÂ I think that's a really good approach -- teaching kids what kind of lesson can be learned through baseball."
The kids on the tour are learning the fundamentals of hitting with a wooden bat, which Potter believes is very important.
"I am on a mission to bring wood bats back to baseball," Potter said. "Even though kids don't use them when they are younger, they should. It actually makes them a better ballplayer. On wood bats there is less of a sweet spot than on metal bats. If you learn wood and go to metal, you can be a better hitter; it's hard to go from metal to wood."
Potter also said that wooden bats help keep the scores of games down, which allows players to focus more on fundamentals than on just hitting the ball as far as they can.
While Potter's tour is about baseball and fundamentals, the idea of bringing baseball back to the community is not lost on him.
"One of the most attractive things about this experience is that it's not just about baseball," said David Murray, whose son is also on the team. "Even though baseball is great in and of itself in our view, combining it with public service and teaching younger kids and hopefully inspiring them to play baseball is great. It's a really well-put-together tour."
The team aims to reward boys who show good sportsmanship.
"It's not an all-star team or a showcase team," Potter said. "It's just kids who like baseball. More important than [being] a good ballplayer is a kid that hustles and works hard and loves baseball."
Potter emphasizes that the boys on the team are good members of the community and are respectful.
"They don't argue with the umpire, throw their helmets and swear when they get a bad call. They are polite and they work hard on and off the field," Potter said.
The players were nominated by the coaches of their high school or travel teams. Zach Scheuerman of Bel Air, who plays baseball for Patterson Mill in Harford County, said he was nominated by the coach of a team he was playing against.
When the team was on tour in Pennsylvania they stayed in hotels and many of the boys compared the tour with life in the minor leagues.
"A lot of us hope to make it to the minor leagues," Scheuerman said.
It costs about $2,400 for each player to go on the tour, with each kid individually raising money for the tour and finding companies to be sponsors. Once they raise the money for the tour, everything from rides to food to hotels is covered.
The tour also provides the opportunity for the boys to travel. Kurtis Krise, 15, from Clearfield, Pa., said he had never been far outside Clearfield, about 120 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, and now he is playing in baseball parks all over Maryland.
"It's different," Krise said. "I'm not used to it. I have a 1-year-old brother at home I miss. But I am seeing a lot of really nice ballparks."
While this is just the first year of Potter's tour, it is something he hopes to do again. It has reminded this group of boys that there is more to baseball than winning.
"It's a lot of fun," said Nick Sia, 15, from Crofton. "It's a team of kids who are good sports, give back to the community and love baseball."