Left: An original Chandler Baseball Camp brochure providing background on Bo Belcher and the facility. Photo courtesy of G.W. Hale
and carried on his father’s traditions. “I remember Tom lighting off a fi rework mortar before every night game,” says Geoff
Beaty, a second-generation camp attendee from Wyoming. “We would line up on the fi eld, and the national anthem would play. Then, Tom would yell ‘play ball.’ He wanted to put on the real deal.”
Beaty served as a camp counselor and coach in the 1990s and is now director of group
ticket sales for the Tulsa Drillers minor league baseball team. He says the night games were legendary and often drew crowds of parents and locals. At the end of the day, it was lights out at 10:30, and campers were serenaded asleep to the sound of chirping crickets outside their bunkhouse windows, exhausted from the sun and stained with red dirt as they rested up for another day of baseball. “Back then, you didn’t play year-round. Nowadays, kids travel and play baseball nine or 10 months out of the year,” says 1973 alumnus Richard Hellman of South Carolina. He asked his parents if he could attend after seeing a Chandler Baseball Camp ad in the back of a Baseball Digest. “It was another opportunity to play after our summer season ended. I played all day, every day with guys from Texas, Arkansas, even Europe.” Like many alumni, Hellman remembers “town day” once a week where campers loaded up in the back of a truck and were driven the short distance into Chandler for a couple hours of free time. “Town seemed so far away, but it was just around the corner,” he chuckles. While some campers were simply looking to extend their summer season, others at-
tended with ambitions of improving their game. David Miller of Indiana was a seventh- grader when he came to the camp in a batting slump in the 1980s. “I struck out several times, but I got to go again. It was a matter of correcting my con-
fi dence,” he says. “I had a supportive coach and I got my groove back. Looking back on it, that camp was the highlight of all camps I went to as a kid.” Even parents of campers, to this day, are fond of what their sons learned on that small, rural baseball field. Canadian Valley Electric Cooperative member and Oklahoma Association of Electric Cooperatives Director of Legislative & Regulatory Affairs Kenny Sparks says his son attended for several years. “The camp was just like going back in time,” he says. “It was an excellent opportunity for him and great business for the community.” Sadly, the Belcher baseball era came to an end when the camp closed in 1999. The Premiere Baseball organization hosted a few camp sessions at the site in the years to fol- low, but the buildings have sat empty for nearly a decade. A hallowed ground where fa- mous athletes such as Troy Aikman, Sam Bradford and many major league baseball stars once played, the camp is legendary for creating an international baseball hub in a small rural Oklahoma town. In 2013, Chandler native and Oklahoma businessman Michael Bay purchased the 60 acres from the city of Chandler and slowly began the restoration process. Nineteen boxes of player stat cards and camper applications were retrieved from the back room of one of the camp buildings and sent to the Oklahoma Historical Society for preservation and safe care. “The city didn’t have the time or money to bring it up to where it needs to be,” Bay
says. “The camp could bring value to our community again. It’s like a little time capsule; you feel like you’re back in the ’60s.” Together with baseball enthusiasts Fred Vint and retired Oklahoma City physician
Glenn W. Schoenhals, Bay is exploring the idea of using the facility as a day camp or entertainment venue. “We’re keeping our options open,” he says. “There are so few of these really laid-back type of places left in Oklahoma.” While the future of the camp remains unknown, alumni will be pleased to hear it will
be handled with care. Last year, the facility was added to the National Register of Historic Places. An Oklahoma treasure, Chandler Baseball Camp lives on in the memories of all who stepped foot on its fi elds to learn the skills of baseball and the lessons of life.
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