The grandson of a man whose name was synonymous with the Kamsack Royals fastball team for over 40 years, has been named the top peewee baseball player in Alberta.
Kobe Laevens, 13, son of Cam and Marci of Spruce Grove, Alta., and grandson of the late Octaaf and Cathy Laevens, is to receive the award on November 26 at the Alberta Baseball Awards banquet in Edmonton.
Octaaf Laevens coached fastball in Kamsack for over 40 years and both he and his wife dedicated much of their time to ball in Kamsack.
“My mother passed away in Kamsack in 2003, but I still own the family farm just southeast of Kamsack,” Cam told the Times last week as he talked about Kobe, the eldest of his two sons, who had recently been named the 2016 recipient of the award for being the top peewee baseball player in Alberta.
“I grew up playing fastball and baseball in Kamsack and played college baseball in the United States,” Cam said, adding that the award is a big honour for Kobe and for Spruce Grove baseball.”
Accompanying some photos of himself and his son which he sent to the Times, Cam said that some of the pictures are with the Spruce Grove team called the Parkland Twins and some of the pictures are with the Calgary Cubs.
“The team from Calgary asked Kobe and I to attend the national peewee tournament in London, Ont. in September, which was another huge honour for him.
“As a catcher, Kobe threw out several base runners, as a pitcher his fastball was clocked at 78-79 mph and he did hit 24 home runs as a batter,” he said.
“All season long, Spruce Grove’s Kobe Laevens knocked it out of the park. Literally,” said Mitch Goldenberg of the Spruce Grove Examiner. “The Parkland Twins’ peewee AAA player used his powerful bat and a handful of eye-popping home runs to claim Baseball Alberta’s player of the year.
“I was pretty surprised, there are a lot of other talented guys,” Kobe told the Examiner. “I was definitely the biggest kid.”
“He’s a man-child,” Cam told the Examiner. “I’m five feet nine inches, my wife is five feet, two inches and he’s six-feet with size 14 shoes.”
Kobe acquired important baseball instincts from his parents, both of whom played college ball south of the border. Both were middle infielders during their playing days and signed their son up for t-ball at the age of five.
“They taught me how to be a good teammate,” Kobe said. “To always try my best and work as hard as I can all the time.”
“Kobe picked up the ball glove and right away showed he was a natural,” Goldenberg’s story said. “By his sixth birthday, Cam says catch with Kobe was ‘like playing with a normal grown up.’ But the kid got bored with t-ball and left the game until he was nine.
“Baseball eventually won Kobe over when he returned for mosquito ball, though he still plays defence for the bantam AAA PAC-Saints hockey team and is a power hitter for St. Thomas Aquinas’ volleyball squad,” he said.
“Cam’s first ‘holy cow’ moment with his son was during a mosquito tournament in 2013 when Kobe smacked a long home run with relative ease in the final inning of a tight game,” Goldenberg said. “The kid had power, and lots of it.
“In peewee, Kobe’s strength and ability at the plate multiplied. He crushed 22 home runs last summer, helped the Parkland Twins earn a berth at the Western Canadian Championships and then joined Team Alberta for nationals.
“His secret, unsurprisingly, is practice.”
“It’s repetition, going to the cages before the game to get into the mindset,” Kobe told Goldenberg of his plate performance. “The key is to get good extension and see the ball out in front of the bat.”
“Kobe excelled this season both at the plate and behind it as the catcher,” the story said. “He also pitched occasionally, since his fastball exceeds 70 miles per hour and is certainly one of the fastest in the province at his age.”
“Watching him hit, if he’s not there with peewee kids and you had to guess his level by his bat speed, you might think he’s playing midget, which is for 16-to 18-year-olds,” said Ryan Murphy, the Twins’ head coach. “It doesn’t take long to spot him. If you just roll out to the park, you can pick him out pretty easily on the field unless you were to confuse him for one of the coaches.”
“Kobe says he embraces the spotlight and doesn’t have too much trouble handling the pressure of being the centre of attention,” the story said. “You sure have a lot of people looking at you all the time. I’m aware of that and I like it; sometimes, they’re really relying on me.”
