Danville Baseball Academy: A conducive environment for teaching baseball

DANVILLE, Calif. — The Crushers Baseball team is an amateur baseball team based in Danville, California. Since the establishment of the Danville Baseball Academy, it has been at the forefront of providing a conducive environment for all children who want to play baseball.

The Academy has been one of the feeder academies for many professional baseball teams in the state of California and the United States at large.

At the Academy, young baseball players are taught how to play, develop a passion for the fun of baseball, work as an entity and as a team and deal with failures as they journey through life.

There are several baseball teams in the city, but the Danville Baseball Academy is unique in four areas.

Firstly, there is hardly any baseball team that provides little league training, clinics, camps, team training, travel private instructions and much more. Other baseball teams may provide one or two of the services mentioned but not all, making the Crushers unique. Every year, Danville takes each of their 12U Crushers to the crown jewel of youth baseball in the United States at the Cooperstown Dreams in New York. How many baseball academies do that?

Secondly, the Danville Baseball Academy is one of the few baseball academies that have not just one facility but two used for training young stars. In addition, the facilities have some of the best equipment, which is only found in a few places in California. They have exclusive rights to use the Athenian School’s baseball fields and their state-of-the-art turf complex during the winter for camps, clinics, and lessons for the 9-12 U crusher teams. The more extensive field is used for the 13-14U Crusher teams and the NorCal Prospect baseball clubs.

The Danville Baseball Academy owns an indoor facility called the Dome. The Dome comprises over 4,000 square feet of space, four batting cages, two pitching mounds and multiple tee stations. It implies that even during winter when it gets dark early, the Danville Academy will still provide some of the best baseball lessons in their indoor space.

Thirdly, you can’t talk about how good a baseball academy is without talking about its coaches. Matt Crudale is one of the several coaches at the Danville Baseball Academy. In 1998, he helped the Mustangs win their only North Coast Section Championship. In the same year, in the American Legion World Series, he was part of the Danville American Legion team that came in 3rd place. Crudale was selected unanimously to the All-Northern California team as a senior in high school.

After high school, Crudale played for Chabot College and later California State University. He was a professional scout until 2003 and joined the San Ramon Valley as a coach, where he spent three years. He joined the Danville Baseball team in 2009 and in the past 12 years, has added more excellence to the team. He is also coaching the Fighting Owls, the baseball team of the Athenian School.

“Matt can be loud and be very to the point, but he cares about the kids, and I could see that from day one. He genuinely cares,” commented Tony Arnerich, the hitting and catching coach of Danville Baseball Academy. regarding Coach Matt Crudale’s coaching style and personality.

Other coaches at the Danville Baseball Academy include Brett Benzer, Paul Gambs, Seth Stockton, Rich Mccurry, Devon Rodriguez, Shane Gillette and Jordan Peterson. All these men have played significant roles in making the baseball academy what it is today.

Lastly, the successes recorded by children who pass through the Academy are first to none. Way back in 2012, the 13U Crushers won the Pony League Championship. Aside from winning several other championships, many players are now playing on big teams.

“We wanted to give guys a chance to be successful and effective,” Crudale said.

For sure, the Danville Baseball Academy has given successes and effectiveness to many of its players.

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