OKEECHOBEE- The travel youth baseball team Chobee Dirtbags is performing community service around Okeechobee all summer in 2021.
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On May 17 the Dirtbags, parents, and coaches helped clean up Cemetery Road. The team picked up trash on a half mile stretch of the road
The Dirtbags will be visiting other neighborhoods once a month during their season, which ends in October.
The work is an effort for the team to thank an Okeechobee community that has supported them throughout the years.
The team is in the initial planning and fundraising stage of the trip to Cooperstown. Back in January they offered longtime umpire Darrell Croft a chance to join them on the trip.
Croft has been an umpire for 37 years, helping officiate local baseball and football games for the youth in Okeechobee. When Dirtbags coach Ruben Guerrero learned that one of the requirements for competing in the tournament in Cooperstown was to bring your own umpire, Croft was the first person to come to mind.
Croft was unaware that the team was offering him an all-expenses-paid trip to Cooperstown until the meeting on Jan. 4, when Guerrero stood up and gave a speech on behalf on the parents and youths on the team.
Guerrero mentioned that Darrell has been a fixture of local sports in Okeechobee for so long that he remembers him back when he played in Okeechobee as a youth.
“I think everybody needs to experience one bad call from Darrell,” said Guerrero with a laugh.
The Dirtbags have tentative plans to hold another fundraiser tournament later in 2021.