All things baseball with Tyson Ross
I recently sat down with Tyson, who is a local legend and former 10 year major league pitcher and 2014 NL all star. Tyson grew up in Oakland, attended Bishop O’Dowd and then UC Berkeley, where he was drafted in the 2nd round by the Athletics. You can find out more about his playing career here.
But our conversation didn’t look back on his playing career, but rather what he’s been up to since hanging up his cleats in 2021. Tyson knew that he wanted to give back to the game that has provided him with so many opportunities, so he immediately started a nonprofit called ‘Loyal to my Soil’. Through this venture, he has provided countless FREE camps, clinics and events to the local community, primarily focused on benefitting underserved youth in the Oakland community. He’s received support from Major League Baseball and several other partners to be able to provide not only great events, but also important equipment that he’s donated to dozens of youth baseball organizations.
Tyson has been super passionate and dedicated to providing resources to kids so that they have every opportunity to enjoy the game of baseball - whether it’s at the youngest levels or even college development programs for local high schoolers.
We both agree strongly that there should be more local opportunities for players who are serious about baseball to get quality feedback and instruction that will help them pursue their dreams, without having to chase showcases and tournaments all over the country. We also discussed the benefits of making the game more fun for kids and working on ways to encourage and train volunteer parent coaches to provide the best experiences possible for their players.
Through his nonprofit, Tyson does a great hybrid model at the beginning of the little league season where teams and coaches come together for a clinic. The first hour is a dedicated coaches clinic teaching drills and ways to navigate a practice, and then the next hour is having the players come out in stations so that the coaches can implement what they’ve learned. This is a valuable opportunity to get the baseball season started on the right foot and something that can be implemented in the Lamorinda baseball and softball community.
At this point, there have been dozens of clinics hosted by Loyal to my Soil, with most of them being run and coached exclusively by former college and professional baseball players - and all for free for the participants. There is no doubt that the effort to grow the game hasn’t been extremely successful and will continue to make a positive impact for this generation of Ballplayers.
If all of this doesn’t keep Tyson busy enough, he’s also married with 2 children under the age of 6, and also works for the Los Angeles Dodgers as a Special Assistant to Player Development, where he attends spring training in Arizona and bounces around to the major league team as well as all of the minor league affiliates.
We are excited to continue collaborating and working together to positively impact the sports community, and I look forward to sharing more information about events and clinics coming up in 2025!