Thomas Berkery wants to bring people together.
In the process, the former Mississippi State baseball standout hopes to improve baseball for the Greater Golden Triangle area.
Earlier this month, Berkery announced an affiliation with East Coast Baseball and a plan to bring area youth travel baseball teams together under his Swing Elite brand.
Berkery held an informational meeting June 12 in Starkville to unveil his plan. He said Monday he continues to talk to parents and coaches about building an organization that will help bring together the area’s best youth baseball players and teams.
“It’s coming together,” Berkery said. “The hardest part is getting it started and getting the wheels rolling and getting the kids there.”
Berkery said he hopes to have teams ready to play in the fall. The next step in that process is to hold tryouts. The first of three tryouts will be Sunday at McKee Park in Starkville. Players in 7- through 10-and-under will try out from 1-3 p.m. Players in 11- through 13-and-under will try out from 4-6 p.m. Tryouts also will be Thursday, July 13, and Saturday, July 15, at McKee Park. The younger age group will go from 6-7:30, while the older group will go from 7:45-9:15 p.m. July 13. The younger group will try out from 9 a.m. to noon, while the older group will go from 1-4 p.m. July 15.
Berkery said it was part of his plan in 2010 when he opened The Swing, a 10,000-square foot facility on Industrial Road in Starkville, to sponsor multiple travel ball teams for baseball and softball. He said he took a job as an account manager with Pepsi in 2012, so he didn’t have as much time during the day to devote to the travel ball side of his life. After leaving that job and taking a job last month as sports tourism director for the Columbus Visitors Bureau, Berkery thought it was a good time to try to bring people together to create a travel ball organization that can service the greater Golden Triangle area.
As an affiliate of East Coast Baseball, Berkery said he hopes to develop a model that organization can use to establish a feeder system. Berkery said he couldn’t join East Coast Baseball as a coach/instructor several years ago, so he contacted Greg Sykes and Joe Caruso, two of the founders of East Coast Baseball, about the chances of The Swing becoming an affiliate.
Founded in 2013 by Caruso, Sykes, and Eric Dubose, East Coast Baseball is a Christ-centered travel baseball organization based in Columbus.
Berkery’s relationship with East Coast Baseball will allow him to outfit his travel ball teams with Marucci gear. East Coast Baseball teams also wear Marucci.
“Your connection to your apparel provider is a big deal now,” Berkery said. “These kids love swag, too.”
Berkery feels the access to Marucci equipment and clothing “professionalizes” the organization. He said it also will be easy for parents to purchase what they need for their players through the website, which will be available to players who play with The Swing.
“The combining of teams is key,” Berkery said. “You have to get the numbers from multiple cities. The Jackson teams are cutting kids as good as we have on our team and replacing them with better. If we want to be AAA or Major and compete, we’re going to have to start doing a little of that. I know it is uncomfortable. You don’t want to cut a kid you go to church with, but at some point you have to separate the lifestyles of the baseball life, the school life, and the church life. It is tough to start, but you have to do it.”
Berkery said changing the mind-set of parents and coaches in the younger ages could be one of his biggest hurdles. But he said those players will have that decision made for them when they are 13 and 14 and they move up to high school ball.
“That has been the one rebuttal, ‘Hey, I think our team is fine and we have who we want,’ ” Berkery said. “That is absolutely fine. Keep the jersey, add the Marucci stuff to it, and you’re good to go. But for the teams that are more aggressive and want to compete on a state level, this gives them an option. Hopefully as it gets laid out we will have more people understand they need to do it and not do their own thing.”
Berkery said players who become members of The Swing will have to a pay a one-time fee of $100 that covers the cost of membership to the facility, which is a $30 a month value. A $20 Marucci fee is part of that $100. He said The Swing will hold two to three camps a year, which will be free to members. Those members also will get $10 off each lesson at The Swing as well as unlimited rentals to use the facility. Berkery said the fees will help him purchase equipment and pay his instructors and coaches, who also will be available to assist the travel ball teams with their practices.
Berkery said he will continue to work as a coach/instructor at the facility. He also said there are former college players and friends who played professional baseball that are on hand to work with players and teams.
Berkery said improvements to The Swing will continue this week. He said he recently acquired some of artificial turf that was in Mississippi State’s Palmeiro Center and will install it in his facility. He said the turf will allow him to reconfigure the layout in The Swing, which should enable him to do more, including hold parties and do speed and agility camps.
“It’s very exciting,” Berkery said. “It’s a huge deal. It’s probably the best thing that has happened to The Swing in a long time. It opens so many doors for us.”
Berkery, who is from Sarasota, Florida, had two scholarship offers out of high school before he decided to sign with MSU. He redshirted his first year on campus and hit .260 as a freshman. In 2006, he won the regular-season batting title by hitting .393. He concluded his career in the NCAA tournament’s Clemson Regional and hit a Southeastern Conference-best .383. He earned second-team Collegiate Baseball/Louisville Slugger All-America honors and was a first-team All-SEC selection. Berkery also won the 2006 Ferriss Trophy as the top college baseball player in the state of Mississippi.
Berkery signed with Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers. He played three years in the Rangers’ organization before retiring.
Following his baseball career, Berkery worked as general manager at the Knoxville, Tennessee-based training facility “The Yard.” He also worked with former MSU teammates Matthew Maniscalco and Steve Gendron at Excel Baseball Academy in Alabama.
For more information, contact Berkery at [email protected].
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 36 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
