TORRINGTON – On Monday evening, 16 Torrington Little League players were honored at practice for successfully completing the 3,000 Club Challenge as part of the at-home Spring Training.
The challenge and at-home spring training was the result of a lengthy stoppage of the Little League season because of the COVID-19 virus.
“We got shut down one week into Spring Training, and we didn’t want the kids to lose the wind in their sails,” Torrington Little League President Abe Correa said. “We wanted to keep them anticipating a new season, so we issued the 3,000 Club Challenge.”
On April 4, the challenge was officially issued by Correa on the Torrington Little League Facebook page.
The challenge began the next day and ran through May 15 with two goals in mind: 1) helping build baseball skills and 2) keep the fire lit under them.
The challenge was simple: field 1,000 pop flies, field 1,000 grounders and tally 1,000 hits.
“We didn’t want them to lose interest if we were going to have a season,” Correa said. “We were trying to build your basic skill set that you are going to need in baseball.”
Players had to document the repetitions they did on a day-by-day basis.
Correa wasn’t sure what the turnout was going to look like since they have never done anything like this before.
“It was a good challenge. There were a lot of kids who started it and didn’t finish, but there were 16 kids who started it and finished it,” Correa said. “Those are 16 kids, I hope, lit a fire under and continued to develop their baseball skills.”
For the 16 players who did complete the challenge, they were given 3,000 Club Challenge t-shirts for their efforts.
“3,000 is a pretty big number. We didn’t want to make it easy. We wanted to challenge the kids to get better,” Correa said. “It was a good challenge. We got a lot of good feedback from it.”
