By JOHN BOHNENKAMP
The crowds were the first thing Caleb Seibers noticed in his first season of playing summer league baseball.
The Burlington Bees are drawing an average of 778 fans, and for Seibers, who just finished his freshman season at Olney Central (Ill.) College, that’s a high number.
“I was not expecting this many people,” said Seibers, an infielder for the Bees. “So I come from a juco. Maybe we get 30 fans. We don’t get a lot of people.”
Seibers has found a way to put on a show for the crowd. He’s one of the Prospect League’s top hitters, and was one of five Bees selected for the All-Star Game this season.
“I mean, it’s been a pretty cool experience,” Seibers said. “You get to come out here, play for these fans in a great atmosphere. It’s been fun.”
Seibers’ numbers are comparable to what he did at Olney Central, when he hit .328 with five home runs and 39 runs batted in. He is hitting .327 for the Bees, which ranks 13th in the Prospect League. He is tied for fourth in the league with seven home runs, and tied for sixth in runs batted in with 36.
The consistency in numbers is impressive considering this is his first season in a wood bat league.
“It was a big adjustment for the first couple of weeks,” Seibers said. “I had a couple of balls that I hit hard that just weren’t going out, so I just started hitting off my back foot a little more.”
Seibers had hits in seven of his first eight games this season. He is in a four-game stretch where he’s batting .429 with a .550 on-base percentage. He wasn’t credited with an at-bat in Saturday’s 15-4 win over the Springfield Lucky Horseshoes, but he reached base in all five plate appearances — he walked three times and was hit by a pitch twice.
Seibers said playing for the Bees has helped him as a player.
“Everybody should do this,” he said. “If you’re in college, you’re going to get better playing in a league like this. And if you didn’t get many reps in college, this is the place to come. There’s 50, 60 games. Everyone’s going to play. It’s a lot of baseball. It’s a lot of good baseball, good competition.”
Seibers said he has learned from some of the veteran Bees who play at the NCAA Division I level.
“It shows how you rank as a player,” Seibers said. “You play in my (junior college) conference, you’re playing against some pretty good guys. And then playing with (Iowa’s Kooper) Schulte and (Iowa’s Miles) Risley, it’s awesome being surrounded by guys like that. They teach you a lot of stuff, and you’ve got to take that in as a player.”
Seibers is taking in the full experience. He said he has done infield work with Schulte and his father, Justin, who is the head coach at Southeastern Community College.
“I’ve been getting in some reps in the outfield, catching bullpens, just trying to get multiple positions down to play at the next level,” he said.
This summer is about baseball only for Seibers, an experience he said he needed.
“It’s a blast,” he said. “Work out, then come here and play baseball. It’s a dream. It’s what the pros do every day. I remember when I first got here, I was like, ‘Geez, this is like pro ball.’ I’m not ready to go back to school yet.”
The Bees head into the final two weeks of the season in the playoff chase, leading the Northwest Division second-half standings by percentage points over the Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp.
Seibers wants to savor every moment he can.
“Let’s hope it’s a slow two weeks, and that we can get in a few playoff games after that,” he said.
Photo: Caleb Seibers watches one of his home runs for the Burlington Bees this season. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)
