Managerial changes announced at Herts Baseball Club

Herts Falcons in action last season. Picture (c) Richard Lee, www.richardleephotography.org

At the club’s AGM, Herts announced that Carlos Casal will be stepping down as manager of the Herts Eagles, with co-managers Arnie Longboy and Jake Caress taking over in his place.

Longboy is a long-standing member of the club who has managed the Herts Raptors in the Single-A League, the Herts Hawks in the Double-A League and now he makes the step up to the Triple-A League with the Eagles.

Caress is a product of the Herts youth programme. He has grown through the ranks playing for the club’s U14, U17, Single-A, Double-A and Triple-A teams.

His progress has not gone unnoticed and this summer he was a member of the Great Britain U19 national team which had a successful qualifying campaign in Croatia – winning promotion to Pool A for the European Championships next year.

In the past two seasons, Caress was the manager of the Herts Cardinals in the BBF U14 league. He led the Cardinals to a bronze medal finish in this year’s U14 National Baseball Championships.

Meanwhile, Greg Bochan and Andrew Slater have been revealed as the new co-managers of the Herts Hawks.

Bochan has been a manager of the Hawks for many years so the camaraderie and continuity of the team will be preserved, while Slater gave Double-A opponents a weekly dose of crafty pitching and clutch hitting this year and in 2015 he will look to add his managerial nous to that.

Elsewhere, the 2014 Most Valuable Player awards for the Herts adult and youth teams were presented on Sunday.

Abel Salas was voted Herts Falcons 2014 MVP – this came as no surprise given that a few weeks ago he scooped all three MVP awards in the whole of the National Baseball League.

He also won the 2014 NBL Home Run title which he shared with Essex Arrows’ Maikel Azcuy who will be wearing the Herts Falcons uniform in 2015.

In other news at the club, Herts have announced the appointment of Jeff Witter as a board member, heading the U14 baseball department, while James Dwyer has been named as communications director and board member.