Ryan Hays didn't want to be bored this summer.

He wanted something stimulating and challenging to do with his time.

He found it.

"At least I'm not laying around doing nothing," he said.

Hays certainly isn't sitting idle this summer. He's crisscrossing the region while playing for the Warren (Ohio) Rooners, a baseball team for 15-to-18-year-olds.

The team plays as many as 70 games during the summer, and the Rooners have 32 games in already - 28 of them wins.

And Hays has been an integral part of the success.

Hays, who will be a junior at Slippery Rock High School in the fall, is an outfielder, pitcher and sometimes catcher for the Rooners in his first season with the team.

"You have to think a lot," Hays said. "The competition is much better here than in high school or even in (American) Legion. You definitely have to use your head out there, particularly pitching, or they'll take you deep."

Recently, Hays went 6

innings against Lima, Ohio, in a 4-3 victory. He's also seen a fair share of time in leftfield for Warren.

The team has a roster of 20 players, including Hays' Slippery Rock teammate Josh Cress.

Cress played for the Rooners last season and went 8-2 for the team on the mound. The left-hander suffered a rotator cuff injury and hasn't been able to pitch for the Rockets or the Rooners this season.

Warren coach Rod Simmer recruits many of his players by seeing them play in person or reading about their exploits in the hometown newspapers.

That's how he discovered Cress and Hays.

"I read about Josh in the Butler Eagle," Simmer said. "You are always looking for left-handed pitchers."

Cress has helped Hays adjust to the team and the toll it exacts on players during the course of a season.

There is a lot of traveling involved. Last Thursday night the Rooners played a game in Akron, returned home about 11 p.m. and then left at 7 a.m. Friday for a tournament at Penn State University.

In July, the team will play tournaments in West Virginia and Tennessee.

"In Legion, you only play two or three games a week," Cress said. "Here, you play almost every day and doubleheaders on the weekend."

Simmer has been coaching the team for almost 35 years.

Over that time, he has seen a lot of baseball and a lot of baseball players come through his program.

"I get to know them all pretty well," Simmer said. "We spend a lot of time together."

Simmer said all the players who have come through his program have had one thing in common: They all have had a love of the game.

"They have to be a little crazy to do this," Simmer said. "They have to have a passion for the game. Any normal person would burn out."

He hasn't seen any sign of burnout from either of his Slippery Rock players.

Hays has impressed the coach with his physical tools.

"He's extremely athletic," Simmer said. "He gets by a lot with his athletic ability. There are a lot of mechanical things we're trying to address, but he's got the athletic ability that you can't teach."

The Rooners' 28-4 start has caught some of the players by surprise, including Cress.

"On paper, our team is not as good as it was last year," Cress said. "But everyone backs everyone else up. We're such a close team and we really meshed well."

That's no small feat. The roster is made up of players from 16 high schools in three different states. A player from California recently joined the team.

"You get to meet a lot of different people," Cress said. "And you get to make new friends."

The Rooners also play in wooden bat tournaments throughout the season

If Simmer had his druthers, aluminum bats would be banned.

"If I had my way, we'd only play with wooden bats," Simmer said. "That's real baseball. You don't get any cheap hits."

Cress and Hays have always had a certain chemistry since their early playing days in the Prospect T-ball league.

That has made this summer a little more special for the duo.

"We grew up together," Cress said. "It's nice having him around."