WOODS CROSS — It's not often that a group of teenage boys gets to rub shoulders with a couple of top-notch Major League Baseball players.
But it happened here Tuesday, when five members of the Colorado Rockies' organization made a stop at the USA Sports House in Woods Cross to put on a youth baseball clinic for a small group of young ballplayers.
Two of the Rockies' top players, Justin Morneau and Charlie Blackmon, were joined by their manager, Walt Weiss, general manager Jeff Bridich and team mascot Dinger for Tuesday's clinic, which capped a five-day, four-state tour made by the 2015 Colorado Rockies Caravan, which made previous stops in Colorado Springs, Denver and Grand Junction, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Boise, Idaho.
Woods Cross was the only tour stop, however, where the Rockies' personnel put on a clinic for youths, and around 15 players ages 12 to 14 benefitted from the Major League players' and managers' expertise and experience.
"It was great," said Tanner Evans, 14, of North Salt Lake, after he and the rest of his Woods Cross Wildcats' competitive league teammates learned a few pointers from Morneau, Blackmon and Weiss. "They taught us a lot.
"They taught us some drills that we could use all our lives to progress if we get up to a higher level than we are right now, things we could use to keep getting better. If we find ourselves in a slump, we can use those drills to find out what's going on and fix it.
"It was amazing," he said of the experience. "It was all of our first times to meet and participate in something like this with major league players to see how they would play baseball and what drills they would use to play that well."
Blackmon, who was a National League All-Star last season, had a good time, too.
"I just want to show ’em that we're playing the same game that they are," he said. "I'm still having fun; it's still a team game, and the stuff that I'm working on now is probably the same fundamentals that they're working on.
"So it's just more of a fun time that we can interact with the guys, explain some things to them and have some fun. It's cool for them and cool for me, too."
EMAIL: rhollis@desnews.com