Members of Cooperstown Youth Baseball and Softball have asked the Cooperstown school board and administrators to consider adding junior varsity baseball and softball teams next season.

Currently, the baseball and softball program at Cooperstown consist of modified programs for grades 7-9 and varsity for 9-12th grades.

This creates a variety of problems for the programs, said former CYB president Brad Feik.

"First of all, most of the other teams in the Center State Conference have modified teams for 7th and 8th grades only, so the competition is unbalanced," he said. "Second, and maybe more important, the baseball program is losing good athletes to other sports at an early age because of the way the system is set up."

Feik and other members of the CYB board addressed the board and administrators at a budget workshop last Wednesday.

"We're hoping to get something done for next year," Feik said.

Cooperstown athletic director Mike Cring said the addition of the programs is on the table to be added to the preliminary budget.

"The program side of me would love to add them because they are a direct benefit to the athletes," Cring said. "But at the same time, we have to present a budget to the public that is fiscally responsible."

Cring said the addition of the programs would cost between $20-22,000 in its first season, and about $14-16,000 the following season.

"If we're going to add one, we'll add them both," Cring said.

Cooperstown varsity softball coach Dave Bliss said the addition of a junior varsity program is critical to the continued development of the program.

This will be the third year of Cooperstown Youth Softball, which has spiked the number of girls playing softball at the older levels, Bliss said.

"Our numbers are way up, and we have too many girls for just modified and varsity," Bliss said. "I had 24 girls go out for the varsity and I have to cut it down to 17, and we had over 30 girls show up for an interest meeting for modified softball. We can't keep that many on the modified level either."

Feik said in 2000, Cooperstown Youth Baseball had 135 participants, a number which increased to over 200 last year.

"We've been very successful on the field too, but we're losing that momentum as the players get older," he said. "Part of what we're trying to do is prepare these players for when they're older, and a lot of that is going to waste."

Cooperstown superintendent Mary Jo McPhail said the addition of the programs would be discussed at last night's (Wednesday's) school board meeting.