Around the Island

For a special summer, host one of the Bucks

BEVERLEA WALZ PHOTO | Mr. Buck, enchanting father, Brett Surerus, grandmother, Ceil Surerus, and  baby, Jackson at Fiske Field Sunday. Get on board and host a Buck for a special summer.
BEVERLEA WALZ PHOTO | Mr. Buck, enchanting father, Brett Surerus, grandmother, Ceil Surerus, and baby, Jackson at Fiske Field Sunday. Get on board and host a Buck for a special summer.

With the Shelter Island Bucks season fast approaching, the team still lacks enough housing for the summer of 2015.

Host families provide a player with a room, bed, a place to launder their uniforms and room in the refrigerator for some food. The hosts are not required to provide meals, although many hosts do. With several players arriving with their own vehicles, there’s no need for host families to provide transportation.

The players are well supervised and know that any misbehavior can result in their being dropped from the team.

What the Bucks give back to the community is free games, baseball clinics for Island youths and major improvements to Fiske Field that benefit the Shelter Island School District.

In a recent column, Joanne Sherman wrote:

“Every host family’s experience is different and fortunately ours was great. These are college kids, most of them too young to drink. The Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League has some very strict rules — no drinking, tobacco products and/or drugs and a rigid curfew. That made it easier for us to establish our own ground rules.
“In previous seasons I had never attended a Bucks game, but that changed once we had a couple of them living under our roof. I wanted to be at the games so I could root for them. These guys play ball all the time. When they aren’t playing, they’re practicing or participating in youth baseball clinics.

“An advantage to having a Buck in residence is that they are willing to help out with projects that require a younger, taller, stronger, smarter (insert the most applicable word) partner.

“The Bucks arrive just in time for summer and depart around the first week of August, when their season ends.

“I guess if we have one regret about signing on as a host family, it’s that we didn’t decide to do it sooner.

We are already looking forward to being a part of the Bucks 2015 baseball season.”

For more information on hosting a Buck this summer, call Dave Gurney at 433-1502 or email him at [email protected].