Sophomore swings in support of club baseball

By Rachel Schwartz

All Will Peregrine wants to do is play baseball. Not just a sandlot game, but real, competitive, "thinking man's" baseball. He's played his entire life and is not ready to give it up.

"As long as I can remember, I was catching fly balls with my dad in the backyard," Peregrine said.

But Peregrine may have struck out at Santa Clara. Since his freshman year, he has attempted to form a club baseball team.

After submitting the paperwork, they were told that the program was being evaluated. However, after the program moved to the Athletic Department, duplicates of any Division I team -- including club baseball -- were banned.

While teams such as women's volleyball have been able to work around the ban, to play club baseball in a league, a Santa Clara group needs official recognition.

Undaunted, Peregrine has continued to work, contacting players and researching how other schools handle the issue of duplication and financial aid compliancy.

"I just have a thirst for organized baseball," Peregrine said. "I'm a pretty competitive person, and I like to win."

Peregrine's love for baseball is genetic, he said. Both his father and grandfather played the game and passed their passion on to him at an early age. His father would tell him about old Chicago White Sox games as bedtime stories. To this day, he plays pick-up games with his friends at the park during the summer.

Last summer, Peregrine, a Chicago resident, worked in the marketing department at Northwestern University and took the opportunity to speak with the Peter Parcell, head of Northwestern's club sport program, who was able to offer guidance as to what might help Peregrine argue his case. Eight of the 34 club sports at Northwestern are duplicates of Division I teams.

Peregrine has also organized an informal group of students interested in forming a baseball team to help him stay focused and brainstorm new ideas. The group, which he refers to as "the board," meets every few weeks to talk baseball.

"He's the most proactive person that I've run into," sophomore board member Dave Harding said.

Peregrine didn't play baseball in high school because of injuries during his sophomore year. But instead of giving up, Peregrine joined the North Shore Baseball League, a summer league in Chicago for high school and college students that want to play in a competitive league during the offseason. He has played in the league for the past five years and has coached his team for the past two.

Following Parcell's advice, Peregrine has worked to secure the three most important things that a club baseball team would need: field space, funding and a roster of potential players.

"The Santa Clara Parks District and the Police Athletic League have both said they are more than willing to rent field space to us to accommodate our practices and games," Peregrine said.

Peregrine has generated a list of potential players through Facebook and word of mouth. He believes that if they held tryouts tomorrow, between 50 and 100 students would turn out to play on a club baseball team.

Club teams cover the majority of their own expenses, but Peregrine is exploring fundraising opportunities with the National Club Baseball Association, the organization that oversees collegiate club baseball.

"They really want to see a team here at Santa Clara and have continued to work with us," Peregrine said.

Athletics, AS and the club sport council have all argued that there are intramural options for students who want to play a sport. Baseball's closest intramurals relative is softball.

Peregrine likens telling a baseball player to just play softball to telling a tennis player to play ping-pong.

"Imagine someone telling you that there wasn't any time available for you to play tennis on the courts next to Cowell but, not to worry, they would be more than happy to set up a table downstairs in Benson so you could play table tennis," Peregrine said.

Contact Rachel Schwartz at (408) 554-4546 or rschwartz@scu.edu.