The Home Runs of Hub City Baseball

Sometimes you need more than a love of a game to ensure a successful youth sports program. You need a love for working with kids and for helping them reach their full potential. One such entity that does all of that is New Brunswick's own Hub City Baseball.

Started in 2004, this recreation baseball team is partnered with New Brunswick Recreation and headed up by head coach and manager Gregory Hall, an accomplished baseball player in his youth and respected coach in New Jersey.

Hall's team plays during the summer months, practicing twice a week and playing two to three games per week. The team consists of players from New Brunswick, Franklin Township, Orange and Jersey City, Hall said.

Hub City Baseball's involvement in the lives of its players does not stop once they leave the diamond, Hall said. Academic performance is monitored and students are mentored while they navigate the teenage years that require solid academic performance and post-graduation plans to succeed.

Hall said that he checks progress reports. College coaches are very interested in that information.

"The first question is always "What is their GPA?" said Franklin High School baseball coach Luis Colon. "We really emphasize school and education."

And of course, they can play, too. The team recently came in second place for the Elizabeth Minutemen Summer Classic Tournament in Elizabeth.

He and Hall coach some of the same players between their two teams, and Hall also volunteers as a coach at the high school.

Colon stopped by a recent Hub City Baseball game the same day he had finished up a session of Warrior Baseball Camp in Franklin Township.

Hub City was playing TNT Sports from East Brunswick, with a final score of Hub City 13, TNT 10.

"Coach Hall does a great job with all the kids," Colon said.

Hall's been coaching baseball since 1987, running camps all over New Jersey, and because of that, his network runs deep.

One of the more curious aspects of Hub City Baseball is the distance between the playing field and the home towns of some of the players - places like Orange and Jersey City.

During a recent game, two young men showed up after a few innings, and Hall put each up to bat and placed them in the field. They had taken the train in from Newark, he said, and were looking to play for the team when it travels to Atlanta at the end of the month for the Urban Baseball Classic.

"Because of the work I do in Essex (County), I attract so many kids," Hall said.

One of those kids he pulled into Hub City Baseball was Rudy Checo, 18, who ended up playing for the team for two years.

While playing for another team, Checo and Hall met as Hall was umpiring the game.

"He asked me to play for him," Checo said. "I liked how he coached."

Checo is moving on in September to attend Arcadia University in Pennsylvania, where he will continue to play baseball.

Hub City Baseball assistant coach Wally Boyett is also the head baseball coach at Orange High School, and believes in the team enough to encourage his high school athletes to play for it. Seven do. 

Boyett said Hub City Baseball offers the players a solid program in which they can properly learn proper baseball fundamentals.

Boyett said that the upcoming Atlanta Urban Baseball Classic is a six day event in which the team will not only take the field, they will tour museums and colleges and learn more about the sports industry off the field - all efforts to expose them to career possibilities in the future, he said.

Hall said that a recurring point with Hub City Baseball is "It is baseball we are playing...life skills we are teaching."

Hall said that it is made easier by the caliber of his players, who, when it comes down to it, also have that love of the game.

"We have some really great kids," he said. "They all love baseball."