STAR FILE PHOTO
O’Quinn, who is now president of the Corner Brook Baseball Association, grew up playing minor baseball under the tutelage of Angeline and believes he became a good player and a better person because of Angeline’s presence on the baseball diamond during the summer months in Corner Brook.
Local numbers for the summer program have been down the past few years and local teams have struggled to win their share of provincial tournaments, which wasn’t exactly the case when Angeline made his mark in the late ’70s and ’80s after pulling up stakes in Fairfax, Virginia to share his wisdom.
Angeline, who runs a business in Fairfax with retirement looming, has been making guest appearances over the past few years, but the local baseball association is smiling now after getting word that Angeline will be back this summer to serve as co-director of the program, working side by side with Rob Myrden for a 10-week stint.
O’Quinn believes Angeline will help make the local coaches better at delivering sound baseball instruction by teaching them things they need to do, which he sees as a key to growing the number of boys and girls playing the game, which is a step towards winning a share of the provincial minor baseball titles up for grabs each summer.
“He wanted to come back. He’s been visiting and he saw some things in our program that he thought he could work on,” O’Quinn said.
Before the program begins at Jubilee Field in June, Angeline will spend three days teaching the local coaching group how to be effective in teaching the fundamentals of baseball and giving them insight into the things that help coaches get the most out of their players.
“When we were here (in the minor system) he made us better by teaching us how to coach,” he said.
Angeline will team up with Frank Humber and Rob Myrden to guide the charges of all Corner Brook Barons minor all-star teams, which O’Quinn believes gives local baseball players the best coaching trio imaginable in the province.
He will also help the association revamp the program, which includes having a more fun-filled, professional atmosphere for houseleague games with umpires, scorekeepers and statistics kept — all part of the new plan to get more youth on the diamond.
“His expectations of a coach are high. He’s a no-bullshit kind of guy,” he said. “His track record when he was here before was top-notch.”
