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By: Dylan Perego
PBR Ontario Scout

In a region of the province dominated by hockey, Sudbury isn't often considered to have promise for growth in the game of baseball. 

Building a skill set, a career, or a life in baseball takes not only time and dedication, but also resources and guidance to raise one’s game to the next level. The latter has been the primary mission of The Baseball Academy and its leader, Jean-Gilles Larocque, since the Academy’s founding in 2009.

Seven years ago, the Sudbury Wolves, the local Ontario Hockey League team comprised of the top junior players in the area, were the prime sports draw and there was little opportunity offered for high-level baseball. The wheels of change, however, began to spin when Larocque was approached by a group of minor baseball coaches about the possibility of going one step further to groom top-level talent in one of the colder corners of the province. 

“I was a little self-centred at the time, still worrying about doing my own thing, trying to keep playing” Larocque said, pointing to the initial inquiries from coaches. But within a year, the decision was made to form the Academy, a facility designed to provide a space for players to hone skills in everything from hitting, pitching, fielding and baserunning. 

Larocque, who has coaching experience in the Shenandoah Valley Major Baseball League, the Ontario Summer Games and the highly-regarded Tournament 12, began to see a path for himself into coaching during his junior year of playing college baseball.

“It got to the point where I thought coaching was the right call for me” said Larocque. “I was not going to ride something out just for the sake of it. My education was a priority and I found myself staying after practice and picking my coaches brains about a lot of things.”

As part of a significant commitment to grow the game at a grassroots level, The Baseball Academy offers camps for children age four to eight in a Rally Cap program, a grassroots plan set out by Baseball Canada. The system is structured in six levels, and as each player progresses through each level, he or she is awarded with a different coloured hat. Hat levels are ordered white (for beginners) grey, black, green, blue and red (top-level) in a system of recognition similar to karate. There's a strong emphasis on small group drills and teams of eight to maximize repetitions for each growing player.

The Baseball Academy offers both summer and winter holiday camps to all age groups that provide players with supplemental guidance from accomplished and experienced guest instructors. Former Toronto Blue Jay players Rob and Rich Butler have devoted their time and knowledge in the past as well as several university, college and travel team head coaches. Larocque credits the variety of instruction in offering a diverse level of knowledge for his players.

“Players can listen to one coach claim that everything is his way or the highway, or they can hear multiple perspectives from a bunch of different sources. We continuously try to give kids additional voices to learn from.”

According to Larocque, the vision for The Baseball Academy currently has two goals. The first is to form a travel team to compete with the likes of Canadian Premier Baseball League teams in Southern Ontario, and the second is to open its players up to the idea of attending Canadian universities. Larocque also commented on the possibility of nearby Laurentian University and the Ontario University Athletics adding a varsity baseball team that would give local players a chance to pursue their dreams while staying close to home, but action is still years away.

The Baseball Academy has already begun to experience success in connecting players with scholarships south of the border. Ashton Roy, a former AAA hockey player known on the diamond for his hitting prowess, is the most recent to sign a national letter of intent, committing to Pratt Community College in Kansas. In all, The Baseball Academy has seven current graduates playing at American schools all over the country, from Texas, to Minnesota, to West Virginia and now Kansas. 

Larocque believes in attracting coaches and scouts from smaller four year programs and junior college programs rather than big name schools because playing time is of the utmost importance for player growth. Efforts to open the Canadian university market have already been made with the likes of the University of Toronto and Thompson Rivers University. The growth of relationships with Canadian university baseball programs is a primary mission for Larocque going forward.

As far as his vision for The Baseball Academy going forward, Larocque's goals extend far beyond training results and player accomplishments.

“We all want to help kids reach their goals and accomplish this and that, but we also hope to raise good, young men," he said. "Some might, or might not go (further in baseball), but we hope that in the process we help form good, young men.”