Alden becomes Caribou’s first N.E. track champ

Recent Caribou High graduate Jeff Alden ended his high school career in a blaze of glory as he became Caribou’s first New England Regional track and field champion.

Alden, who was seeded third, won the 1,600-meter run at the meet in Plymouth, Mass., last week with a time of four minutes, 20.2 seconds.

He is believed to be the only New England champion in any sport from Caribou in at least four decades. The only other Viking believed to have finished nearly as high was Maine Sports Hall of Fame member Emery Plourde, who placed second at the 1939 New England cross country championships.

Alden plans to attend Colby College, but before heading to Waterville he will travel to Solleftea, Sweden. There, he will train a year for a cross country ski race biathlon, where competitors stop to fire rifles at a series of targets.

Diamond Dreams

High school baseball players with dreams of playing in college may want to check out one of five scheduled College Select Baseball Showcase camps this year.

Four of these events are being held on the East Coast starting in July. The camps, sponsored and organized by College Select Baseball, LLC, run two or three days and feature three games per player/team (no more than eight teams of 15 players each). There are pro camp skill drills, wood bat batting practice (bats provided), detailed written evaluations for each player, plus exposure to college and professional scouts as well as college coaches scheduled to speak at each showcase.

Other benefits include the sharing of information on each CSB Showcase player with college across the country and letters of recommendation, which will be sent to the top five college choices of each player – provided CSB officials believe the player qualifies both athletically and academically to go there.

The first showcase will be held at Dodd Stadium in Norwich, Conn., on July 5, 6 and 7. The second will be at KeySpan Stadium in Brooklyn, N.Y. Aug. 6-8 followed by one at NYSEG Stadium in Binghamton, N.Y., Aug. 16-18 and GPU Energy Stadium in Lakewood, N.J., Oct. 5-6. The final showcase will be held on the West Coast at Beiden Stadium in Fresno, Calif., Dec. 26-29.

Players must be scheduled to graduate in the class of 2003 or later to be eligible to participate and must submit a letter of recommendation from their varsity high school coach and/or pro scout along with their registration form, which are available to be printed from the CSB Web site. The cost of attending an East Coast showcase is $225 per player. The Fresno showcase is $250.

Prospective participants hoping to play at the college level can visit the CSB site at www.collegeselect.org, call 1-800-782-3672 or write to College Select Baseball, LLC, P.O. Box 783, Manchester, CT, 06040 for more details.

Big league hopes

The Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau will conduct a tryout camp in Sanford at Goodall Park Monday, July 1.

The camp, which will be conducted by Len Merullo and other MLB scouts, is open to all players ages 16-25 and no fee is required.

Registration starts at 8:30 a.m. and players are asked to appear in full uniform. American Legion players are asked to bring a letter of approval from either their Legion coach or commander.

Prospective players must sign a liability waiver to participate and those under age 21 must have a parent or legal guardians present to sign a waiver.

All 30 Major League Baseball teams will be represented at the tryouts, which are also being held June 26 (New Britain Stadium, New Britain, Conn.), June 27 (Scot Park, Chicopee, Mass.), June 28 (Holman Stadium, Nashua, N.H.), and June 29 (Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.).

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or aneff@bangordailynews.net.