Lake County Sidewinders Travel Baseball

Home of the 17/18U

Sidewinders Select 

Sidewinders Baseball is one of Lake County’s original travel baseball organizations and began fielding competitive travel ball teams in 2006. We have been a staple organization for providing no-nonsense travel baseball in Northern Illinois. 

Sidewinders Baseball 2021

will be fielding teams at the following Levels

9U thru 15U 

17/18U - Select Summer Team

Please reach out to us see the contact page or see thetryout page if you are interested in more information about our program!

 Sidewinders Mission Statement

• Sidewinders baseball is dedicated to providing young baseball players the opportunity to fully enhance their skills and potential in a competitive program designed to prepare them for high school baseball and beyond.

• In order to achieve this goal, Sidewinders baseball is committed to identifying motivated coaches and players who exhibit the desire and talent to excel, and then provide these players with year-long quality coaching, emphasizing skill development with consistent practice and hard work. 

• Sidewinders baseball seeks to maximize each player's development by offering competition against the best youth baseball teams, not only in Lake County but throughout the Midwest.

• In addition to fielding competitive teams, Sidewinders baseball is dedicated to teaching good sportsmanship, and providing a fun and positive atmosphere that will result in a lifelong respect and love for the game of baseball in each player.

The following is some general information regarding our program.

Team tryouts typically occur in late July and/or August of each year.

Team selections are typically finalized shortly after all tryouts are completed. In some instances, call backs are made to finalize final team rosters.  

The Lake County Sidewinders is not considered a feeder team for any one high school. We are a not for profit (501c3) baseball association and acquire our players with open showcases, try-outs and invitations. We do work with some of the local high schools so we can offer many of their coaching drills and concepts to further help the players as they compete for their high school teams.

Our teams will participate in a travel league that is picked by the individual teams and coaches. The local leagues that are offered to play in are; Mikes Memorial League, McHenry Baseball League, or Mid Suburban League. The typically will play 16 to 25 games in any of the three mentioned leagues.

Our playing season starts in early spring and ends by late July and typically includes 40 to 55 games comprised of both league and tournament play at each coaches discretion. Regular/league season games are played in a variety of communities including our home field location but typically games are within a 60 minute drive or less for league games.

For tournaments each level team will participate in 5 to 8 tournaments with possibly one or two being overnight away tournaments, such as Dells, Kentucky, Indiana, etc.  Each tournament typically includes a minimum of 3 games in pool play with more as the team advances in bracket play.

We will work basic to high level baseball drills in an effort to challenge all players on our teams. We will work on conditioning, speed and agility as it is a must to play at competitive levels for achieving success.

We will do off season situational baseball training and workouts that typically start in January and go through March till we can get outside. In most cases we will do two work outs a week and currently are partnered with Bat Speed for those work outs, along with using local high school gyms.

Our players typically reside in a variety of communities in and around the Lake County and McHenry County areas.The Lake County Sidewinders play their league home games at: “Field of Dreams” 26725 Molidor Road Ingleside Il.

The player participation fee is determined prior to the beginning of winter workouts and includes home and away uniforms, hats, practice shirt, cleats, bat bags, helmet, tournament fee’s, indoor training fee’s, umpires, insurance, equipment, etc.  The participation fee is spread across three or four payments with $300  being due typically at time of accepting a roster slot and the last payment due in mid-January. The player participation fee total averages between $850 to $1,250. Most of our teams offer a “NO Mandatory Fundraising" option. Although we will conduct fundraising events, it is only at an effort to bring the above participation fee amounts down for each individual player, family or team. This has allowed many players in the past to get their individual participation fees as low as...well, playing for free! This is subjective to each individual team and will be explained further at team meetings. 

Once final team selections are complete we attempt to offer Fall Ball League options and some practices. 

As an organization we will put a plan together for the players to develop and succeed. As a team, in conjunction with Coaches, Players and Parents, we work very hard to make the “Plan” work!