by Evan Joseph ’23

Olney has produced a multitude high-level baseball players including collegiate-level talents and even pros. The Olney Boys and Girls Club (OBGC) has recently announced that they will be adding a collegiate summer league baseball team named the Olney Cropdusters to their organization. OBGC is also building a new stadium for the Cropdusters, which will also be used for other OBGC events.

The idea for a collegiate summer team came to be after a presentation by investors, and members of OBGC jumped on it, acknowledging the great love of baseball in the greater Olney community.

OBGC’s mission for the Cropdusters is focused on creating a local baseball experience that brings “fun and family entertainment, while contributing to the development of talented college athletes.”

Brad Scott, the Executive and Athletic Director of OBGC, said that the plans are on schedule at this point. “We’re basically doing the project in three phases. Phase one will be complete by the summertime and it’ll be in-ground dugouts, a scoreboard, and new bullpen areas,” said Scott. “The next two phases are going to be lights so we can play games in the dark, and we´re going to have some press boxes and then bleachers and stands for the fans. It’s going to be a multi-step process over the next few years in order to finish it, but it will be a playable field starting in the summer.”

The Head Coach of the Cropdusters is Adam Leader, a teacher in Howard County who has been the head baseball coach for Reservoir High School for 20 years and hosts a baseball camp there every summer. Leaders’ goal for the team is “to give college players on our roster the best summer of baseball of their lives” and for “every fan that attends our games to have the best baseball experience of their lives.”

The team has players from all across the country and is made up of elite college baseball talent, including three Sherwood alumni: Brett Seils (‘21), Michael Bouma (‘19), and Ben Vok (‘19).

“We looked at a couple of different factors [in selecting players for the team],” explained Scott. “Our general manager has some relationships with certain colleges so he went to some different colleges about sending some guys to play with us. But we also wanted to get guys who would be exciting for the community so we are having some of the guys that have played at Sherwood over the last couple of years that are playing division one college to come to play.”

OBGC will also host the out-of-state athletes for the summer. “There are guys coming from as far as Hawaii,” said Scott. “We are in the process right now of getting host families. Basically, anyone that would want to have a player come stay with them can become a host family and host them for the months the season is going on, and you get a chance to come to the games and hang out with the players and it makes for a cool experience.”

The team will be playing in the Cal Ripken Collegiate Summer Baseball league, which is made up of teams mostly based out of the DMV area. With the Cropdusters on their way, more great baseball is coming to Olney as they look to advance the baseball culture and tradition rooted in our area.The team will be playing in the Cal Ripken Collegiate Summer Baseball league, which is made up of teams mostly based out of the DMV area. With the Cropdusters on their way, more great baseball is coming to Olney as they look to advance the baseball culture and tradition rooted in our area.