As the games begin for the season’s JC Patriots, sophomore Cameron Eastep is ready to take on his season being a part of the junior varsity baseball team as a second baseman.

Cameron has been playing baseball for the past 10 years and has continued to work and practice since then. He said he began playing baseball “because of [his] dad’s encouragement.” Through this encouragement, Cameron’s passion for baseball grew stronger.
The first team he played for was the Fallston Cougars. Since then, Cameron has been playing for Premier along with playing at JC.
This season has been very new in the sense of tryouts with new players joining the team and the loss of the baseball field due to construction.
Cameron said, “Tryouts this year were a lot different because we didn’t have a field yet, so we had to go up to Ripken [Stadium] after school.”
Cameron added, “I practice once a week outside of school because of high school baseball, but once high school baseball ends, I will practice three times a week.”
After playing baseball for so long, Cameron has learned one major life skill, leadership, through his dedication to baseball, hard work, and the role of working with fellow teammates to help one another improve and work as a team.
Cameron said one of his favorite experiences through baseball is “the overnight tournaments when you hang with your team all night.”
Through experiences like these, teams often get time to get to know one another, hangout, and grow stronger as a team. This bonding can be so beneficial to allowing players to not only get to know their teammates as players, but as friends.
Although there are many benefits to playing baseball, there are challenges when it comes to it as in many other sports.
Cameron said, “The challenge is every year you have to keep getting better and adapting to people around you.” Each year, new people join the team while some players must move on from the team. Cameron uses this circumstance as a learning experience.
Taking time and putting in the effort is an important part of sports, but it is just as important to have passion or love for the sport. Cameron’s love for the sport is what keeps him playing. For the future, he is planning to possibly pursue baseball in college.
In this season that just began, Cameron is excited to play the game along with playing on the new field. Currently, Cameron is focusing on preparing for each game.