Like Father, Like Son

Kent and Dylan St. Pe’ warm up with a game of catch, then Dad throws his son some pitches in the batting cage at Buffalo High School. Van’Go’photos Father’s Day afternoon found Kent and Dylan St. Pe’ sharing one of their favorite activities: throwing a baseball around.

Kent, a 1986 graduate of Buffalo High School, was a three-sport letterman ‘back in the day’ playing football, basketball and baseball for the Bison. He recalls that “James Mae (Henson) made us run track, too!” Kent and his wife Leslee, a teacher at Buffalo Junior High, now have two children, and the apples didn’t fall far from the tree.

Dylan started playing ball when he was five. Kent was his coach then, and has been ever since. Now twelve, Dylan is a promising athlete who last fall tried out and made the 12-U American Youth Baseball select team, the Texas Renegades out of the Woodlands. He pitches and plays second base. Haden Nash of Centerville, son of Charles and Londa Nash, also plays on the Renegades team and the families must get the boys to the Woodlands twice each week for practice. The team just finished their very successful regular season and will play in the State tournament this weekend in Beaumont.

Earlier this month, the Texas Renegades travelled to Cooperstown, New York to compete against 102 other teams from 24 states. About 1500 of the best 12-and-under players from across the nation stayed in dorms on-site, and had a ball playing at Dreams Park, the state-of-the-art facility with 26 matching baseball fields.

In their second game, the luck o’ the draw pitted the Texas boys against a talented California team, the La Marinda Cougars, which had a pitcher with an 82 MPH pitch -- the equivalent of a 104-MPH fastball in the Majors. The Cougars went on to take the title of tournament champions.

Regardless of the outcome of the tournament, the guys enjoyed a serendipity. Each participant was inducted in the National Little League Hall of Fame -- and each player got a ring to prove it. Dylan was even interviewed by a reporter from the Florida Fox Sports Network. “They were just talking to random people, asking how much we enjoyed it.” And how much was that? “On a scale of one to ten... probably a twelve!” The youngster also expressed his appreciation for the community’s support. “I want to say thank you to all the people who bought the briskets I sold (to earn the money for this trip.)

A highlight for the whole St. Pe’ family was a visit to the Cooperstown’s Baseball Hall of Fame. Dylan shared enthusiastically, “It’s always been one of those dreams -- to go to the Hall of Fame. They actually had Babe Ruth’s ball and bat that he hit his last home run with!”

Kent and Leslee St. Pe’ also have a daughter, Dani, who will be a 5th grader at BES this year. She is playing softball and her team, the Lady Bison 10-U coached by Jonathan Smith, Connie Easterling and Gayla Tollett, will be going to the state tournament in Rockdale next month.