Hunter Weissman is a 2024 John Crawford award winner. He is the second Renegade to earn the award for excellence in volunteerism. The first 2024 award went to Rasik Waikar. Both these young men worked on our offense this past season and shared a lot of responsibilities. Both went the extra distance as a volunteer. That is what this award is about. It’s about volunteers coming out of nowhere and stepping up in a time of need. John did this for us back in 2012. Heck, we had spoken on the phone for less than an hour with John before he decided to take a week off work to help our squad in Ames, Iowa. We will never forget this generosity of John Crawford. This award is a way to keep his memory alive. We paid tribute to John when he lost his battle with cancer in this article.
Hunter Weissman’s Renegade History
The journey as a Renegade for Hunter Weissman has spanned more than half his life. For him and his siblings, their mother approached Rob wanting to teach her kids the value of volunteering and giving back at a young age. Hunter and Teigan (twins) started at just 12 years old while their sister, Calista started at the age of nine. Hunter volunteered when he was available between 2011 and 2013. He was juggling school, baseball and family responsibilities. He loved baseball and this was a great fit for him. He would often be found helping the defense, guiding guys back from bases, working a base switch and shagging BP as a youngster and eventually would start catching batting practice.
Hunter took some time off and came back in 2015 at the age of sixteen. This is when he started to really catch BP and started to work more and more with the hitters. Hunter decided to attend Franklin Pierce College with a major in sports management. After his freshman season, where he played club ball, he took a big step with the Renegades. This step helped him get experience to validate if this was a career he wanted to pursue.
Hunter Weissman was the first team intern
In 2017, Rob and Hunter Weissman discussed the Renegades ability to help Hunter with his interest in a sports management career. At this time, Hunter became the first ever Operations intern for the team. He learned a lot in a short few months. He learned about social media, running and organizing events, travel arrangements and even the value of using email! Hunter had opportunities to work with the National Baseball Hall of Fame during his time as an intern. He also got experience working with the city of Watertown. This eventually opened up opportunities for him for part time work and eventually full time employment in the recreation department. One thing originating from this internship was doing live streams for the team’s events.
Live Streams – Taking the next step
Hunter grew up watching Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo on NESN without giving much thought to being a broadcaster. He and his uncle sat down to discuss some of the challenges and opportunities of the team’s live feeds. We wanted to make them more engaging for our fans and better for our players during games. We wanted to make sure to tell stories and use this as a platform to market our events. We felt we had an opportunity to make the best broadcast in the league. At first Hunter was overwhelmed. He then came up with an idea to bring Luis Soto onto the streams to do them in Spanish so Soto’s family could listen/watch from the Dominican Republic. Every year, Hunter would get feedback from the team on what was working and not working. Every year, he gets better and better.
Live stream lessons from 2023
Hunter Weissman working the live stream in 2023 at the Beast of the East
One of the many things that earns Hunter this award is not just his streams but that he wants to make them better for our fans. After the 2023 season ended, one complaint was the wind noise in the microphones. Additionally, our tripod got damaged by a ground ball. Without even talking about it, Hunter went out and bought new microphones, a new tripod and phone connector. He did this on his dime, donating it to the team. Additionally, he made it easier for the team by making sure the live feed gear was packed and brought to tournaments. Coach Rob says, “Hunter, you have no idea how these little things save me time when preparing to travel. Every little thing I don’t have to do allows me time to breathe, something I struggle with. The more I breathe, the better a coach I am”.
Hunter has taken his play by play work to a new level and in doing so Gina Devenish has also raised her game. They both push each other to improve and their strengths make each other better. No team in the league has a better duo doing their live streamers in the league. They tell the story together, move the tripod and create an experience for our fans and even fans of other teams. They both do this while often keeping score or doing other duties for the team.
2024 Live stream results
Hunter’s baseball background enables him to describe what he sees on the field with accuracy. Since he has been in the game since he was 11, he knows the nuances of the sport and has a lot of back ground on our players and team history. He has learned to be more descriptive showing his empathy and understanding of the needs of our blind users. This description even helps our sighted viewers because, after all, we are using an iPhone to shoot the action, not professional equipment. Our top game of the year got over 2,000 views when hunter called the Beast of the East title game (Gina was calling the defense on this day).
But Hunter goes above and beyond those games. He even makes highlight videos. This year, he made three of them that totaled near 1,700 views on Facebook. This requires him to go back and edit all the videos, add graphics and even music. It’s a lengthy process but Hunter wants to give this as a gift to the team and its fans. You can view them here:
- Beast of the East Leg one highlights
- Beast of the East Leg two highlights
- Ivan Rodriguez scores his first career run highlight
“I really appreciate everything that Hunter brings to the team. From his constant support and feedback when he is coaching at the hitting station, to his super descriptive play-by-play on the live stream. I had to miss the Beast of the East this year and I tuned into every game. Hunter’s knowledge of baseball and more specifically beep ball makes his play-by-play super engaging and easy to follow. Hunter is a critical part of many aspects of the Renegades and I’m proud he is being honored with this years John Crawford award.” – says Drew Crook.
The role of Hitting coach
Hunter Weissman works with Rob Thayer in the cage
Hunter Weissman has been one of the primary hitting coaches for years. This year was slightly different though. With Coach Rob spending more time working with the defense in 2024, Hunter was one of the primary coaches working with the hitters alongside Rasik Waikar, Alex Hamel and Mike Marciello and pitchers, Ron Cochran and Peter Connolly. Coaching hitting is not easy and our coaching is one of the reasons the Renegades are considered one of the better hitting teams in the league (The Renegades had the 6th best batting average of 20 teams at the 2024 World Series). Not only do we coach and try to get better, but we work to make in tournament adjustments when we can.
Hunter also played a leadership role in organizing practices. He was put in charge when coach Rob was on vacation. This required Hunter to develop a practice plan and work as the liaison with our contacts at the batting cages. Luis Soto says, “You’re an invaluable team coach, and your contribution are a treasure. You’re always so willing to help and support us when necessary showing the love you have for the team. Your hard work has helped me become more consistent with the bat when I go to the plate. I also thank you for all you do during the season when you take your time to take us to the different fields. How you do it and with the passion you do it is amazing. Thank you for everything you do for us.”
Driving for Practice
Often times, this year, Hunter was called upon to help with rides. Hunter is one of the few coaches who lives in the city and we struggled to get rides at times to those without cars. Whenever he was asked for help, he willingly agreed, often times adding time to his commute. On multiple occasions, he was asked to pick up people he had never met. Sometimes, this was a new coach or a prospect wanting to try the sport. Either way, Hunter knew that breaking this barrier down would help them participate.
Felipe Hamdar, a new coach who started this winter states, “The simple acts in life can mean a great deal to another. I can’t count the number of times Hunter has helped by providing a safe commute in the crazy Boston traffic. Sometimes, we spent more than one hour to get back. In that hour, we would share some laughs, stories, places to eat, and he’d always teach me something new about beepball and baseball. Like Oprah Winfrey said: Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. I appreciate the help, my friend.”
Driving Rentals
Additionally, Hunter Weissman turned 25 this spring. This meant for the first time in his tenure with the team, he would add value to our travels and could drive vans without added insurance costs. We took advantage of this. Hunter volunteered to pick up vehicles early in the morning and drop them off very late at night for our Beast of the East travel. The small things often go unnoticed, but they are a huge time saver to the team and really helps spread out the amount of work on the few coaches who have done this over the years. His uncle states, “Hunter, You know how hard mornings are for me. Thanks for pinch hitting and blasting a home run which helped me to feel more comfortable with my morning issues”.
Willing to “pitch” in
Hunter Weissman throwing a pitch in his first dedicated batting practice
Hunter Weissman has always been willing to do stuff for the Renegades. His experience in baseball, his love of sports, his relationships with the squad built over his 13 years as a volunteer makes him invaluable to the Renegades. But this season, we really needed to grow our depth at pitching. Hunter stepped up saying he always wanted the opportunity to pitch since he joined the team. To help him get started, the team had a series of fall work outs. One primary goal of these was to get Hunter experience throwing. Hunter made time and scoped out locations to throw batting practice on five different dates in the fall (we had more that were rained out). Here, he threw to nine veteran players and three new prospects for the 2025 season. Not only did he volunteer, he did great.
Pitching success
We had many competitions amongst these groups and his strike out rates were some of the lowest for a new pitcher in team history. Shayne Cantan shares his experience, ” He has turned into one of the most important pieces of our renegade toolbox, from commentary, to hitting into live defense, to now being an extra pitcher. I have been one of the few people to work with Hunter as he has gotten into pitching, our first seven at bats were strikeouts, then our next 15 at bats had balls put into play, this is exactly who Hunter is, he puts time in to get better and because he does that we as players get better, his commitment to excellence is contagious and we are so lucky to have him”.
He is a baseball player and has great hand eye coordination. His years of being a hitting coach and knowing their swing tendencies is an advantage. The combination of these skills and experience will help the team improve it’s pitching depth. It may be hard to find hitting instructors, but it’s even harder to find someone willing to stand 20 feet away from our hitters and throw the ball with accuracy.
Hunter also volunteered to come pitch against the Northeastern baseball team. This would be another test for him to work on his ability to hit bats. He faced 20 different hitters and every player left making contact at least once, even their pitchers! Not too bad for our third string pitcher who had thrown just five different BP sessions in his career!
Thank you Hunter!
Hunter Weissman demonstrating what the Northeastern Baseball team will be doing to hit off him
Hunter Weissman is our second winner of the 2024 John Crawford Award for excellence in volunteerism. Though he has always been there for the team, he just keeps doing more and taking on more responsibilities. Every Renegade is proud of his growth, watching him grow from a 12 year old kid to a fine young man! You can easily say, he grew up with the Renegades!
Luis Rodriguez sums it up nicely, “There are no words to express how much pride and gratitude it gives me, having Hunter selflessly volunteer to pitch for us. He’s been part of the Renegades since he was a young boy, and has given us so much throughout the years. To have him now be willing to take on even more, and give more of his time as he is building his own future shows the kind of person he is, and how lucky we are to have him. By pitching as well as coaching, he ensures our ability to continue to play, remain competitive for many years to come, and maintain our wonderful community/family we have.”
Other Award Winners
2024 marks the 3rd year of these awards. To learn more about the contributions of our other amazing volunteers, please check out the links below:
- 2024 Award winners
- 2023 Award Winners
- 2022 was the inaugural season for this award.