Who:

Any GPWSLL-eligible player who will be Little League age 7 to 16 for the 2026 baseball season. (Little League age is determined as the age the player will be as of August 31, 2026.) Woods-Shores Winter League is designed for players who do not play on a Lakeside Baseball Club team or other travel team with year-round training opportunities.

What:

Woods-Shores Winter League players would participate in the same offseason training program as the players on Lakeside Baseball Club teams. We have six different training groups:

·       Collegiate (for players LL age 7 for the 2026 season)

·       Collegiate (for players LL age 8 for the 2026 season)

·       Minors (for players LL age 9 for the 2026 season)

·       Minors (for players LL age 10 for the 2026 season)

·       Majors (for players LL age 11-12 for the 2026 season)

·       Senior League (for players LL age 13-16 for the 2026 season)

Training groups would be capped at 13 players for each group.

Where:

Lakeside Indoor, located at 17101 Neveux St. near the intersection of Mack Ave. and Cadieux. They will meet on the turf side but hitting will be worked into the training.

Why:

GPWSLL envisions a player development roadmap that provides year-round training opportunities for our players from the Collegiate Division all the way through our newly revamped Senior League program, which finished third in the state at the Michigan Senior League Baseball State Tournament this past summer. In order to support a competitive baseball program at Grosse Pointe North, our youth programs must develop a player pool that is larger than the 11 to 12 players per year that Lakeside teams are capable of supporting. Providing the same training opportunities to a larger group of players keeps more players involved in the game that they love while keeping our high school program competitive.

When:

Woods-Shores Winter League will run for 10 weeks, beginning the first week of January 2026 into March 2026. It would end just prior to GPWSLL evaluations and the beginning of the 2026 Little League season. Players will train for 1 hour per week. Below are the times for each age:

How:

The training would be led by Lakeside’s professional instructors. The program will be developed in partnership with Jason Hill, who after a successful collegiate baseball career has worked with players ranging from Little League through Division I (including his three sons, who all came up through our Little League and went on to play college baseball). The player fee for this training is $250 per player (which is a fraction of the cost of the player fee for a full travel baseball team). We will also be looking for “Team Administrators” who can serve as the single point of contact between Lakeside and each training group. These Team Administrators would not be responsible for developing any of the training curriculum – they would only help manage communications and scheduling between Lakeside and the training group.

If you have any questions about the program, please contact Kenny Hemler, Vice President & Director of Player Development for GPWSLL, at [email protected] or (586) 899-3107.