Back from Nebraska and Virginia and on his way to Wisconsin, Brighton’s Ernie Clement pitches in at his old baseball camp

Posted by [email protected] | Sep 26, 2015 | Sports | 0 |

Ernie at celebration. Second row , far right.

• June 30, 2015

For Brighton’s Ernie Clement the last week has been a whirlwind. Early last Thursday morning his University of Virginia baseball team captured the NCAA Championship in Omaha and, later that night after a red eye flight, the team and 4,000 Cavalier fans partied with panache at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville. And, in a week or so, Ernie starts his next baseball adventure when he heads Midwest to play summer ball for the Wisconsin Rapid Rafters.

SEE Brighton fans celebrate hometown hero Ernie Clement in victory

And Ernie has been on local TV. His proverbial sixty seconds of fame!

On Monday, I had the chance to meet Ernie at the youth baseball camp in Brighton run by Brighton Head Coach Jason Wasserman. Despite all the hoopla, Ernie was as advertised: a polite, humble, even tempered young man. He told me he began himself at the camp as a first grader and only left when he was too old to come back. In those camps, he was mentored by Coach Wasserman and members of the Brighton varsity team who Ernie saw as role models. Thrilled to have the chance to spend a few days with the younger kids, Ernie is in his element: playing catch, pitching in the cage and sharing his love of the game.

Ernie at Jason Wasserman’s youth baseball camp in Brighton

When we talked baseball, Ernie wanted to talk about his 14 Cavalier teammates who had painfully lost the 2014 championship game to the same Vanderbilt Commodores. And how much the new guys like himself wanted to win it for them. As for his summer goals with the Rapid Rafters, keep it simple. Plate discipline, pitch selection, work the count. For fielding. Reps, reps and more reps.

Myself (BHS ’81) and Ernie at the Brighton Fields

I first remember watching Ernie play two years ago at a game at Buckland Park in Brighton. Seeing him at bat, I turned to man next to me, “This kid can play.” It happened that the man was Ernie’s father. Mr. Clement only talked about Ernie when asked. I learned that from a young age Ernie had almost preternatural hand/eye coordination. Ernie seemed to master any game he tried. Mr. Clement never pushed Ernie or forced his gifts. Just let him play.

As a former Brighton Baron myself (Captain of the Chess Team counts), I say, Ernie make us proud.

SEE ALSO

Brighton fans celebrate hometown hero Ernie Clement in victory

About The Author

[email protected]

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.