2011 ABCA Meritorious Service Award Recipients
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Tom Bonekemper
Atlantic Collegiate League |
 Pete Caliendo U.S. Baseball Federation |
Past President Pete Caliendo and Board Member Dave Cook met with softball superstar Jennie Finch recently to discuss the upcoming Pitch & Hit Awards Banquet.
Twenty-five years later, Caliendo is one of the world’s most respected advocates for the game, and he leads his charge from his home in Schaumburg.
Caliendo is president of Caliendo Sports International, the company he built in order to promote baseball, and to develop instructional information for baseball coaches at all levels.
His baseball resume reads like that of a high-ranking international businessman,
Which is what Caliendo is, but his business is baseball.
“I’ve never had a real job,” Caliendo said. “I am extremely fortunate.”
Caliendo’s reach goes beyond our borders. He was technical director for the World Baseball Cup competition which ended last September in Europe. He was on the jury of appeal for baseball in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, trying to get the game back into the Olympic circle. He is technical director for the International Baseball Federation, the world governing body for baseball.
But his most important work is right at home, where he has developed coaching aides to help volunteer coaches (i.e, parents) learn how to coach the game to their children and their neighbor’s children.
“I have coaching seminars for volunteer coaches,” Caliendo said. “I have an on-line coaching program where they can be certified. Our number one priority is to train our volunteers. We have to give them enough information to go ahead and train our kids.”
In the summer of 1975, at the age of 15, Caliendo left his home in Elmwood Park and attended his first Mickey Owen baseball summer camp in Springfield, Mo. A middle infielder of moderate talent and immense heart, Caliendo took to the full-time baseball atmosphere immediately.
“There was no swimming pool, no TV,” Caliendo said. “All there was was baseball. All we did was play baseball. I played 100 games that first summer, and umpired 100 games. I was there for 10 summers. Even when I went to college, I would leave as early as I could to go to camp and come back in September.”
Baseball allowed Caliendo to attend the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he studied criminal justice and played ball. When his college days were over, he was invited to play baseball professionally in Italy (he had family over there) but he was told he would in the summer 2010 need to have Italian citizenship because teams were only allowed three or four Americans and Caliendo simply wasn’t good enough to waste an American spot on.
But Caliendo was already set for a life after playing. His relationships garnered during his years at the Mickey Owen camp allowed him to begin the process of creating a baseball career.
Caliendo began by setting up baseball camps in the Chicago area, including one affiliated with the Chicago White Sox. They were called Baseball Schools USA, and at the time they were a new concept in the local baseball field.
“I had to talk to the leagues to convince them to let me set up in their communities,” Caliendo said.
In 1990, Caliendo was invited to work with a USA 16-and-under baseball team going to Brazil to participate in the Pan-Am Games. Eventually, Caliendo worked with USA Baseball to set up national teams at U-14, U-16 and U-18, competing in international competitions. He also travels with the teams around the world, promoting the game of baseball on an international level.
Caliendo also is currently regional coordinator for USA Baseball’s National Team Identification System, which sets up workouts to help identify players who could qualify to play for the national teams. Caliendo puts together teams of players from his six states at the different age groups and sends them on a trip to Cary, N.C. for a series of games which serve as national team tryouts.
So there you have Caliendo’s life: training volunteer coaches, helping to identify players for national youth teams and traveling with the youth teams to international tournaments, looking for the best competition the world has to offer.
That’s a lot of baseball, but for a man like Caliendo, that is also a lot of doing exactly what he always wanted to do.
“This didn’t happen by accident, but I didn’t plan it,” Caliendo said. “It all just kind of snowballed. Sometimes I talk to my mother back in Elmwood Park, and she still doesn’t know what I do. She just knows I didn’t go in the direction she wanted.”
The direction he ended up going was around a baseball diamond with four stops, eventually ending up at home.
(For more information on Caliendo’s camps, coaching DVDs and seminars, and the National Team Identification System, go to caliendosports.com, greatlakesntis.com and baseball.coachesvideolibrary.com.)
Coach Caliendo to teach a one week baseball course in Mexico City
Coach Caliendo, former USA Baseball Coach and a veteran of coaching for 28 years will be heading to Mexico City next week for the Mexican Baseball Federation to give a one week baseball course for coaches across Mexico. This is the 5thyear in which coach Caliendo has given the course. The Mexican Baseball Federation has several levels of certification which ends with a certificate ceremony at the end of the course.
“It is a thrill to be able to travel the world to share teaching ideas in the game of baseball to coaches who have a passion for the game. The Mexican coaches love baseball and understand how to have fun playing it. Baseball is a global sport which will only continue to grow at great numbers. The course is broken into class room with bio mechanical video analysis, theory, coaches outdoors doing the drills and teaching the drills to kids.” Peter Caliendo
Coach Caliendo will also be heading too Japan, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
2011 American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Meritorious Service Award Recipient
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Pete Caliendo U.S. Baseball Federation |
Pete’s Postcards
Peter Caliendo at the Osaka Dome in Japan to meet with Japanese baseball officials.Pete is building goodwill and hopes that our relationship will lead to USA teams travelling to Japan for competition as well as working togther to develop coaches’ training in both countries.
Twenty-five years later, Caliendo is one of the world’s most respected advocates for the game, and he leads his charge from his home in Schaumburg.
Caliendo is president of Caliendo Sports International, the company he built in order to promote baseball, and to develop instructional information for baseball coaches at all levels.
His baseball resume reads like that of a high-ranking international businessman,
Which is what Caliendo is, but his business is baseball.
“I’ve never had a real job,” Caliendo said. “I am extremely fortunate.”
Caliendo’s reach goes beyond our borders. He was technical director for the World Baseball Cup competition which ended last September in Europe. He was on the jury of appeal for baseball in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, trying to get the game back into the Olympic circle. He is technical director for the International Baseball Federation, the world governing body for baseball.
But his most important work is right at home, where he has developed coaching aides to help volunteer coaches (i.e, parents) learn how to coach the game to their children and their neighbor’s children.
“I have coaching seminars for volunteer coaches,” Caliendo said. “I have an on-line coaching program where they can be certified. Our number one priority is to train our volunteers. We have to give them enough information to go ahead and train our kids.”
In the summer of 1975, at the age of 15, Caliendo left his home in Elmwood Park and attended his first Mickey Owen baseball summer camp in Springfield, Mo. A middle infielder of moderate talent and immense heart, Caliendo took to the full-time baseball atmosphere immediately.
“There was no swimming pool, no TV,” Caliendo said. “All there was was baseball. All we did was play baseball. I played 100 games that first summer, and umpired 100 games. I was there for 10 summers. Even when I went to college, I would leave as early as I could to go to camp and come back in September.”
Baseball allowed Caliendo to attend the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he studied criminal justice and played ball. When his college days were over, he was invited to play baseball professionally in Italy (he had family over there) but he was told he would in the summer 2010 need to have Italian citizenship because teams were only allowed three or four Americans and Caliendo simply wasn’t good enough to waste an American spot on.
But Caliendo was already set for a life after playing. His relationships garnered during his years at the Mickey Owen camp allowed him to begin the process of creating a baseball career.
Caliendo began by setting up baseball camps in the Chicago area, including one affiliated with the Chicago White Sox. They were called Baseball Schools USA, and at the time they were a new concept in the local baseball field.
“I had to talk to the leagues to convince them to let me set up in their communities,” Caliendo said.
In 1990, Caliendo was invited to work with a USA 16-and-under baseball team going to Brazil to participate in the Pan-Am Games. Eventually, Caliendo worked with USA Baseball to set up national teams at U-14, U-16 and U-18, competing in international competitions. He also travels with the teams around the world, promoting the game of baseball on an international level.
Caliendo also is currently regional coordinator for USA Baseball’s National Team Identification System, which sets up workouts to help identify players who could qualify to play for the national teams. Caliendo puts together teams of players from his six states at the different age groups and sends them on a trip to Cary, N.C. for a series of games which serve as national team tryouts.
So there you have Caliendo’s life: training volunteer coaches, helping to identify players for national youth teams and traveling with the youth teams to international tournaments, looking for the best competition the world has to offer.
That’s a lot of baseball, but for a man like Caliendo, that is also a lot of doing exactly what he always wanted to do.
“This didn’t happen by accident, but I didn’t plan it,” Caliendo said. “It all just kind of snowballed. Sometimes I talk to my mother back in Elmwood Park, and she still doesn’t know what I do. She just knows I didn’t go in the direction she wanted.”
The direction he ended up going was around a baseball diamond with four stops, eventually ending up at home.
(For more information on Caliendo’s camps, coaching DVDs and seminars, and the National Team Identification System, go to caliendosports.com, greatlakesntis.com and baseball.coachesvideolibrary.com.)
Twenty-five years later, Caliendo is one of the world’s most respected advocates for the game, and he leads his charge from his home in Schaumburg.
Caliendo is president of Caliendo Sports International, the company he built in order to promote baseball, and to develop instructional information for baseball coaches at all levels.
His baseball resume reads like that of a high-ranking international businessman,
Which is what Caliendo is, but his business is baseball.
“I’ve never had a real job,” Caliendo said. “I am extremely fortunate.”
Caliendo’s reach goes beyond our borders. He was technical director for the World Baseball Cup competition which ended last September in Europe. He was on the jury of appeal for baseball in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, trying to get the game back into the Olympic circle. He is technical director for the International Baseball Federation, the world governing body for baseball.
But his most important work is right at home, where he has developed coaching aides to help volunteer coaches (i.e, parents) learn how to coach the game to their children and their neighbor’s children.
“I have coaching seminars for volunteer coaches,” Caliendo said. “I have an on-line coaching program where they can be certified. Our number one priority is to train our volunteers. We have to give them enough information to go ahead and train our kids.”
In the summer of 1975, at the age of 15, Caliendo left his home in Elmwood Park and attended his first Mickey Owen baseball summer camp in Springfield, Mo. A middle infielder of moderate talent and immense heart, Caliendo took to the full-time baseball atmosphere immediately.
“There was no swimming pool, no TV,” Caliendo said. “All there was was baseball. All we did was play baseball. I played 100 games that first summer, and umpired 100 games. I was there for 10 summers. Even when I went to college, I would leave as early as I could to go to camp and come back in September.”
Baseball allowed Caliendo to attend the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he studied criminal justice and played ball. When his college days were over, he was invited to play baseball professionally in Italy (he had family over there) but he was told he would in the summer 2010 need to have Italian citizenship because teams were only allowed three or four Americans and Caliendo simply wasn’t good enough to waste an American spot on.
But Caliendo was already set for a life after playing. His relationships garnered during his years at the Mickey Owen camp allowed him to begin the process of creating a baseball career.
Caliendo began by setting up baseball camps in the Chicago area, including one affiliated with the Chicago White Sox. They were called Baseball Schools USA, and at the time they were a new concept in the local baseball field.
“I had to talk to the leagues to convince them to let me set up in their communities,” Caliendo said.
In 1990, Caliendo was invited to work with a USA 16-and-under baseball team going to Brazil to participate in the Pan-Am Games. Eventually, Caliendo worked with USA Baseball to set up national teams at U-14, U-16 and U-18, competing in international competitions. He also travels with the teams around the world, promoting the game of baseball on an international level.
Caliendo also is currently regional coordinator for USA Baseball’s National Team Identification System, which sets up workouts to help identify players who could qualify to play for the national teams. Caliendo puts together teams of players from his six states at the different age groups and sends them on a trip to Cary, N.C. for a series of games which serve as national team tryouts.
So there you have Caliendo’s life: training volunteer coaches, helping to identify players for national youth teams and traveling with the youth teams to international tournaments, looking for the best competition the world has to offer.
That’s a lot of baseball, but for a man like Caliendo, that is also a lot of doing exactly what he always wanted to do.
“This didn’t happen by accident, but I didn’t plan it,” Caliendo said. “It all just kind of snowballed. Sometimes I talk to my mother back in Elmwood Park, and she still doesn’t know what I do. She just knows I didn’t go in the direction she wanted.”
The direction he ended up going was around a baseball diamond with four stops, eventually ending up at home.
(For more information on Caliendo’s camps, coaching DVDs and seminars, and the National Team Identification System, go to caliendosports.com, greatlakesntis.com and baseball.coachesvideolibrary.com.)
2011 ABCA Meritorious Service Award Recipients
|
|
Pete Caliendo U.S. Baseball Federation |
2011 ABCA Meritorious Service Award Recipients
|
Tom Bonekemper
Atlantic Collegiate League |
Pete Caliendo U.S. Baseball Federation |
Twenty-five years later, Caliendo is one of the world’s most respected advocates for the game, and he leads his charge from his home in Schaumburg.
Caliendo is president of Caliendo Sports International, the company he built in order to promote baseball, and to develop instructional information for baseball coaches at all levels.
His baseball resume reads like that of a high-ranking international businessman,
Which is what Caliendo is, but his business is baseball.
“I’ve never had a real job,” Caliendo said. “I am extremely fortunate.”
Caliendo’s reach goes beyond our borders. He was technical director for the World Baseball Cup competition which ended last September in Europe. He was on the jury of appeal for baseball in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, trying to get the game back into the Olympic circle. He is technical director for the International Baseball Federation, the world governing body for baseball.
But his most important work is right at home, where he has developed coaching aides to help volunteer coaches (i.e, parents) learn how to coach the game to their children and their neighbor’s children.
“I have coaching seminars for volunteer coaches,” Caliendo said. “I have an on-line coaching program where they can be certified. Our number one priority is to train our volunteers. We have to give them enough information to go ahead and train our kids.”
In the summer of 1975, at the age of 15, Caliendo left his home in Elmwood Park and attended his first Mickey Owen baseball summer camp in Springfield, Mo. A middle infielder of moderate talent and immense heart, Caliendo took to the full-time baseball atmosphere immediately.
“There was no swimming pool, no TV,” Caliendo said. “All there was was baseball. All we did was play baseball. I played 100 games that first summer, and umpired 100 games. I was there for 10 summers. Even when I went to college, I would leave as early as I could to go to camp and come back in September.”
Baseball allowed Caliendo to attend the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he studied criminal justice and played ball. When his college days were over, he was invited to play baseball professionally in Italy (he had family over there) but he was told he would in the summer 2010 need to have Italian citizenship because teams were only allowed three or four Americans and Caliendo simply wasn’t good enough to waste an American spot on.
But Caliendo was already set for a life after playing. His relationships garnered during his years at the Mickey Owen camp allowed him to begin the process of creating a baseball career.
Caliendo began by setting up baseball camps in the Chicago area, including one affiliated with the Chicago White Sox. They were called Baseball Schools USA, and at the time they were a new concept in the local baseball field.
“I had to talk to the leagues to convince them to let me set up in their communities,” Caliendo said.
In 1990, Caliendo was invited to work with a USA 16-and-under baseball team going to Brazil to participate in the Pan-Am Games. Eventually, Caliendo worked with USA Baseball to set up national teams at U-14, U-16 and U-18, competing in international competitions. He also travels with the teams around the world, promoting the game of baseball on an international level.
Caliendo also is currently regional coordinator for USA Baseball’s National Team Identification System, which sets up workouts to help identify players who could qualify to play for the national teams. Caliendo puts together teams of players from his six states at the different age groups and sends them on a trip to Cary, N.C. for a series of games which serve as national team tryouts.
So there you have Caliendo’s life: training volunteer coaches, helping to identify players for national youth teams and traveling with the youth teams to international tournaments, looking for the best competition the world has to offer.
That’s a lot of baseball, but for a man like Caliendo, that is also a lot of doing exactly what he always wanted to do.
“This didn’t happen by accident, but I didn’t plan it,” Caliendo said. “It all just kind of snowballed. Sometimes I talk to my mother back in Elmwood Park, and she still doesn’t know what I do. She just knows I didn’t go in the direction she wanted.”
The direction he ended up going was around a baseball diamond with four stops, eventually ending up at home.
(For more information on Caliendo’s camps, coaching DVDs and seminars, and the National Team Identification System, go to caliendosports.com, greatlakesntis.com and baseball.coachesvideolibrary.com.)
Twenty-five years later, Caliendo is one of the world’s most respected advocates for the game, and he leads his charge from his home in Schaumburg.
Caliendo is president of Caliendo Sports International, the company he built in order to promote baseball, and to develop instructional information for baseball coaches at all levels.
His baseball resume reads like that of a high-ranking international businessman,
Which is what Caliendo is, but his business is baseball.
“I’ve never had a real job,” Caliendo said. “I am extremely fortunate.”
Caliendo’s reach goes beyond our borders. He was technical director for the World Baseball Cup competition which ended last September in Europe. He was on the jury of appeal for baseball in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, trying to get the game back into the Olympic circle. He is technical director for the International Baseball Federation, the world governing body for baseball.
But his most important work is right at home, where he has developed coaching aides to help volunteer coaches (i.e, parents) learn how to coach the game to their children and their neighbor’s children.
“I have coaching seminars for volunteer coaches,” Caliendo said. “I have an on-line coaching program where they can be certified. Our number one priority is to train our volunteers. We have to give them enough information to go ahead and train our kids.”
In the summer of 1975, at the age of 15, Caliendo left his home in Elmwood Park and attended his first Mickey Owen baseball summer camp in Springfield, Mo. A middle infielder of moderate talent and immense heart, Caliendo took to the full-time baseball atmosphere immediately.
“There was no swimming pool, no TV,” Caliendo said. “All there was was baseball. All we did was play baseball. I played 100 games that first summer, and umpired 100 games. I was there for 10 summers. Even when I went to college, I would leave as early as I could to go to camp and come back in September.”
Baseball allowed Caliendo to attend the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he studied criminal justice and played ball. When his college days were over, he was invited to play baseball professionally in Italy (he had family over there) but he was told he would in the summer 2010 need to have Italian citizenship because teams were only allowed three or four Americans and Caliendo simply wasn’t good enough to waste an American spot on.
But Caliendo was already set for a life after playing. His relationships garnered during his years at the Mickey Owen camp allowed him to begin the process of creating a baseball career.
Caliendo began by setting up baseball camps in the Chicago area, including one affiliated with the Chicago White Sox. They were called Baseball Schools USA, and at the time they were a new concept in the local baseball field.
“I had to talk to the leagues to convince them to let me set up in their communities,” Caliendo said.
In 1990, Caliendo was invited to work with a USA 16-and-under baseball team going to Brazil to participate in the Pan-Am Games. Eventually, Caliendo worked with USA Baseball to set up national teams at U-14, U-16 and U-18, competing in international competitions. He also travels with the teams around the world, promoting the game of baseball on an international level.
Caliendo also is currently regional coordinator for USA Baseball’s National Team Identification System, which sets up workouts to help identify players who could qualify to play for the national teams. Caliendo puts together teams of players from his six states at the different age groups and sends them on a trip to Cary, N.C. for a series of games which serve as national team tryouts.
So there you have Caliendo’s life: training volunteer coaches, helping to identify players for national youth teams and traveling with the youth teams to international tournaments, looking for the best competition the world has to offer.
That’s a lot of baseball, but for a man like Caliendo, that is also a lot of doing exactly what he always wanted to do.
“This didn’t happen by accident, but I didn’t plan it,” Caliendo said. “It all just kind of snowballed. Sometimes I talk to my mother back in Elmwood Park, and she still doesn’t know what I do. She just knows I didn’t go in the direction she wanted.”
The direction he ended up going was around a baseball diamond with four stops, eventually ending up at home.
(For more information on Caliendo’s camps, coaching DVDs and seminars, and the National Team Identification System, go to caliendosports.com, greatlakesntis.com and baseball.coachesvideolibrary.com.)
2011 ABCA Meritorious Service Award Recipients
|
|
Pete Caliendo U.S. Baseball Federation |
Pete Caliendo and former Bulls General manager and current White Sox international scout Jerry Krause visit in Thunder Bay Canada during the 18 u World Championships. Coach Caliendo served as a Technical Commissioner for the International Baseball Federation.
2011 ABCA Meritorious Service Award Recipients
|
|
Pete Caliendo U.S. Baseball Federation |
Peter Caliendo and Jerry Krause former Bulls General Manager and current White Sox International Scout visit during the 18 U World Championships in Thunder Bay Canada. Coach Caliendo was there for the International Baseball Federation as a Technical Commissioner.
2011 ABCA Meritorious Service Award Recipients
|
Tom Bonekemper
Atlantic Collegiate League |
Pete Caliendo U.S. Baseball Federation |