Hialeah Educational Academy Quickly Turning Heads

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Every day at practice there are about 15 to 20 people out watching the Hialeah Educational Academy baseball team. When the Bulldogs play home games at Slade Park it seems like the whole Hialeah community comes out to watch them. The team has complete support from its school, and there is a lot of excitement for the promising young team.

Hialeah Educational is still a young school, and the baseball team is entering just its second season of district play. Both are growing, and it is becoming a baseball school. There is a beautiful new, state-of-the-art building they added to the campus. This year they are expanding, and they are adding a matching building horizontally right next to the building by Slade Park, and it is going to be all state-of-the-art rooms as well.

Meanwhile the team is getting better every day, under the tutelage of new Manager Reggie Rodriguez. The new Bulldogs skipper came over from Dade Christian, and inherited a talented young team with a lot of experience. Hialeah Academy earned the top seed in the district last season and had a strong showing in their first year of district play. Now they look to build on that and reward all their loyal fans.

They love playing for their team, and the guys appreciate the special campus that they play on.

“As far as baseball facilities, we have three fields that we can use,” Rodriguez said. “We have bullpens and cages and we use them all the time. If we have one group hitting on the big field we’ll send guys to the small field to work on bunt defense and other defenses. We are lucky enough to have those fields that we use for practice so we try to mix them up in groups.”

Rodriguez has installed a lot of things that they are not used to from what they have had in the past. They put in a lot of hard work and a lot of discipline. The main thing is getting them focused on what they need to do. They embrace it and they love the change. They like the discipline and conditioning and they enjoy the practices.

“The group is a very hard-nosed team,” Rodriguez said. “They love to compete, they love competition and they don’t back down to anybody. They play the game right, and that is one of the things we are really trying to get them to do is to respect the game and to play the game right. Everywhere I’ve been I have always made sure the kids understand that the game is bigger than them, or high school baseball, or anybody else.”

The Bulldogs bring back a lot of the roster, after only graduating a few seniors. They have a deep pitching staff and are also pretty good offensively.

Peter Baldrich returns to lead a powerful lineup. The senior had a strong season at the plate last year and is headed to play at Palm Beach State next year. Danny Castillo and Alfredo Barroso also return to the middle of the lineup. The team also has a nice mix of guys who get on base and use their speed, such as Danny Ramos and Brandon Valdes. The team plays aggressively, and when guys get on they often get a chance to run.

“I use speed and diversity, and try to wreck havoc on the bases,” Valdes said. “I always watch the first pitch and try to watch his sequence to figure out what he is doing. I watch to see if he opens with a curveball or fastball, if he has a high leg kick or a quick move to the plate. I try to take advantage of the high leg kick or I try to go on a curveball in curveball counts. I get a good lead, a good jump and I take off.”

As good of a job as the team did scoring runs last year, a strong pitching staff did a good job of holding the other sides at bay. Returning to lead the staff is veteran Victor Fleitas, as well as Anthony Tedesco. The club also gets a boost from newcomers Angel Estevez and Cesar Rodriguez.

A deep team got even stronger with some new guys coming in. This also includes Ken Goodrich, Miguel Rodriguez and Damian Delgado. With such a unique atmosphere and educational experience, guys are finding it a very welcoming environment.

“The school is smaller than at Mater Lakes, but the teachers are easier to talk to and they are like family,” Estevez said. “I like it so far and the school is pretty good. I hang out with the baseball team, and usually we all sit together at lunch. I like the coaches and we work hard in practice. The coaches really drill us so that we don’t have any mistakes during the game. I love the practices with my coaches and my new teammates.”

The Bulldogs play a tough schedule, with a lot of 7A and 8A teams. They embrace tough practices that lead up to tough games, and they know it will make them well prepared once they get to the district games.

Although Estevez is new to this district, last season he played at Mater Lakes in another very tough district. He is familiar with that challenge and excitement from these contests.

“District games have a lot of fans and a lot of hype and it is really crazy,” Estevez said. “In this district I think SLAM and Sagemont are two of the harder teams and I am looking forward to playing them.”

Rodriguez feels it is going to be a very deep and challenging district, just like it was last year when he faced the same teams with Dade Christian. It is a tough challenge, but this is a team that embraces the difficult.

“There is a lot of confidence with all the guys,” Valdes said. “We put a lot of work in and we believe we are going to get the job done. We have a lot of good coaching and I believe in this team.”

There is a lot of excitement for the program. To cap off this exciting season, the Bulldogs will play a game at Marlins Park. This is something that Rodriguez has always wanted to do since he was at Dade Christian, but lacked the total numbers to make it a reality. With a group of roughly 40 players in the program, they were able to do enough fund-raising to make it possible to play at the stadium. Now it is circled on the schedule.

“It’s going to be an amazing experience and we cannot wait for that. We are looking forward to that one,” Rodriguez said.

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