SOUTH JORDAN \u2014 Can you remember the last time you were so excited you could hardly sleep? That\u2019s how Hudson Wood felt about baseball.<\/p>\n
\u201cOhhh!\u201d he shouted when he saw someone hit a ball over the wall, his face lighting up with pure joy.<\/p>\n
He was one of about 150 young players who had the chance to hit, throw and catch at The Ballpark at America First Square<\/a> in South Jordan on Saturday morning. The Ballpark is home to the Salt Lake Bees<\/a>. The Kids Clinic was part of major league baseball\u2019s new Homerun Derby X<\/a> competition.<\/p>\n For Wood, just being on the field was a dream come true. Hudson was so excited, he woke up at 4 a.m. to get ready.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was super fun,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know, just playing a game I love to play.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI hear this scuffle,\u201d recalled his dad, J.D. Wood. \u201cHudson is up and he\u2019s like, \u2018Dad, I\u2019m getting ready. Let\u2019s do this.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Bud, awesome.\u2019 And he had his jersey all laid out. It was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n The excitement only grew when former major leaguer and two-time World Series champion Jonny Gomes stepped onto the field to coach the kids.<\/p>\n \u201cGet your hands up. Get ready,\u201d Gomes instructed during a session near the rightfield wall. \u201cOh, get it, get it, get it. Throw it in, throw it in, throw it in.\u201d<\/p>\n For Gomes, the day was about more than baseball, it was about passing along his passion for the game.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what it\u2019s all about,\u201d Gomes said. \u201cJust passing our knowledge down and at this age, it\u2019s all about fun.\u201d<\/p>\n He also shared some thoughts about the possibility of Salt Lake City landing a major league baseball team in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cHey, I\u2019m pulling for you guys, too,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cI\u2019ve had a great time here in Utah and hopefully you guys do get that big league stadium. But, I mean, this stadium here alone is a big-league stadium. You guys are spoiled to have this.\u201d<\/p>\n And for some of the kids, just playing the game was enough.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I like playing baseball and I like to just play,\u201d said South Jordan resident Finley Winn. \u201cIt\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n After all, it all starts with a dream\u2026 even if that dream means a little less sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH JORDAN \u2014 Can you remember the last time you were so excited you could hardly sleep? That\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,220,5179,5178,185,219,218,217],"class_list":{"0":"post-330161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-home","10":"tag-ksltv-com","11":"tag-ksltv-com-utah-news","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-talk-and-community","14":"tag-traffic","15":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115240021773065258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}