The Federal way: Stress the basics and wear a belt

Jerry Berkson's baseball manifesto, he admits, has grown a little out of control in the 20 years since the West Coast Federals came to be. What started out as a dozen or so edicts – fundamental beliefs about the game, the way it should be played and his way of coaching it – has grown to about 150.

Before you go into a rage by saying that nobody's do-or-don't list on anything – baseball especially – should be so lengthy, understand that Berkson's manifesto isn't the rambling of a crazed man, but a glimpse inside his head of a baseball purist, life coach and two-bit comic.

His manifesto centers around baseball, but it might be more of a to-do list for growing up. For example, Rule No. 1 mandates that each player carry his own equipment to the field and not rely on a parent to do so. That carries over to virtually every aspect of life. A fourth-grade tuba player might be the exception.

Some other rules – like wearing a belt, having the jersey tucked in and his cap on correctly while abstaining from wearing wrap-around sunglasses, gold necklaces and any other version of bling, drip or whatever the kids are calling it these days – are reiterated numerous times in the manifesto, which, he admits, could have been shorter if it weren't so entertaining and contain so many real-world lessons.

The point is that this is what Berkson believes. About baseball and life. It's the West Coast Federal way.

"Being a Fed is more about learning, playing, and winning at baseball," Berkson said. "Fed baseball is more of a culture that is disappearing from youth ballfields for various reasons. If you have played the game at a higher level, or at least been around it for a while, you will understand."

It's a no-frills approach to a game that has been changed by big-league antics that include bat tossing after home runs and walk-up music. The Federals will have none of that, but that doesn't mean there's no room for fun and friendships, the things that always have and always will drive youth baseball.

"I became really good friends with the guys who were on my team," said St. Ignatius Prep senior and West Coast Federals alum Archer Horn, who might be considered the best baseball player on the Peninsula. "A lot of them are with me at SI now. We all kind of stuck together."

The Wildcats lineup this year features Horn, Chase Gordon and DJ Delaney, all of who will be playing collegiately in the fall and all former Feds. They only begin to scratch the surface of what Berkson has built in 20 years.

Berkson takes pride in the fact that many of the best high school players on the Peninsula, the ones that fill the pages of PeninsulaPrepBaseball.com, got their formative baseball training with the Federals.

The list is lengthy. Serra graduate Ian Josephson, now at Saint Mary's College after leading the Padres to a CCS championship and earning Prime 31 player of the year honors, was a Federal, as was Aragon graduate Josh Jacobs, who is in his freshman year at Claremont McKenna College.

Both Ian Armstrong, now catching at Saint Mary's, and brother Jack, who is at CSM, were Federals, along with Saint Francis sophomore Landon King, who played varsity baseball last year as a 14-year-old freshman.

"That program felt like so much more than a team," said Jack Armstrong, who is medically red-shirting at CSM after sustaining an elbow injury that required surgery during the fall ball season. "I am still friends with a lot of my teammates from back then and I would consider them friends for life."

The Federals have the advantage of attracting many of the best players around, Berkson said. Still, taking the cream of the crop and teaching them to play the game the right way has the makings of a pretty impressive legacy.

The West Coast Feds were borne out of Berkson's desire for his own children to be taught to play the game the right way. Twenty years later, Berkson is now coaching some of the children of the kids he started with in 2006.

A new season begins in early April, when the Federals will hold a camp at Hillsdale High for 180 ballplayers, some of which will be slotted onto as many as 13 tournament teams – ages 9 to 14, that will play every other weekend from August to November, including a trip in the fall to play in Las Vegas.

"I'm surprised it has lasted this long," says the former Hillsdale High and College of San Mateo standout pitcher. "That wasn't the plan. If I'm surprised about anything, it's that we have 13 teams."

He says there is both a supply of good players in the area and a demand to place them on teams. The Feds would have more teams if Berkson could find enough qualified coaches – the kind of coaches that stress the fundamentals that have become the Federals' calling card – to meet that demand.

"Every player should be given the opportunity to get the best coaching possible, so they end up where they were meant t be," Berkson said.

Those fundamentals and knowledge of the game are what players bring with them to their Little League teams and eventually to the high schools they will represent in the spring. And once the Federals get them in the program, Berkson and his staff have a knack for making them better.

"That program was probably the best program I could have ask for as a kid," said Jack Armstrong, who, as part of a core group of seniors, was an integral piece in Serra's CCS title run last year. "I was blessed with coaches who took pride in what they did and truly helped me to get better every day."

From the start, Berkson has broken down the game to the fundamentals. At the April camp, kids will spend hours working not on hitting, but on the basic parts of the game that are often overlooked: defense, rundowns, outfield angles to the ball and base running.

They'll take a hundred ground balls over the course of the weekend, but the basic fundamentals will be stressed, Berkson said. It's about knowing what to do in the heat of the moment by preparing for those situations regularly. In a sport that often requires quick-twitch reaction, Berkson is teaching the art of anticipation and being prepared for those situations. He's teaching a brand of thinking-man's baseball, which, when taught to kids who already have a high-level skillset for the game, often creates special players.

"That was really key to my development as a player," said Horn, who will be playing in the fall at Stanford, unless he gets wowed by an offer in the Major League Draft in July. "The fundamentals have been kind of ingrained in me. They've built a solid IQ and for the game in me.

"... With the Feds, there's a lot of focus on the fundamentals and a lot of stuff about the mental side of the game. For kids that age that's an important thing to learn as you develop. It helps a lot."