The San Francisco Seals organization was founded in 1985 by current President and General Manager Abel Alcantar. Alcantar, a high school baseball coach at the time, was approached by a local scout who suggested that he form a summer team for the San Francisco Public School System. So Alcantar founded the San Francisco Seals 18 & Under team. The following year he founded a 16 & Under team as well. In 1987, Alcantar continued the tradition and formed a team for those over the age of 18. Alcantar owned and funded these teams individually; he received some coaching support, but no financial assistance. All three clubs were maintained until the early 90s when he decided to concentrate his efforts on the 18 & Over collegiate team. These days the Seals are once again expanding into teams from the youth levels all the way to collegiate level. Coach Abel has a well qualified coaching career and has also been fortunate enough to be a professional baseball scout for few MLB clubs. Some of the places he has had coaching stints at are City College of San Francisco, Skyline College, Laney College, and Cal State Eastbay. The Major League Baseball teams he was an associated scout for was the Milwaukee Brewers and New York Mets.
Isias Alcantar, Coach Abel’s son, is a recent graduate of the Univ. of Arkansas – Pine Bluff where he was named the Southwestern Athletic Conference Player of the Year as a junior. As a senior he helped UAPB win its first Western Division title and was also drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays and played in their minor league system. He was awarded conference player of the year in 2010 as a senior at Analy High School playing in the Sonoma County League. While playing at Laney College in his sophomore season he was awarded conference player of the year in 2012 and helped his team to a Bay Valley Conference title. He spent 2016 as a first year assistant coach at Cañada College. He now is an Assistant Baseball Coach at Holy Names University while he pursues a Master’s in Business Administration.
Todd Surdez, played with the Seals for 3 summers during his college tenure and has helped coach the Seals Collegiate Team since 2013. He was an 3-time All League player at Northgate High School and graduated in 2006. He played his college ball at Laney College and graduated with his AA in 2009, Oklahoma Panhandle State where he was an All Heartland Conference player in 2010, and finished at Waldorf University in 2011. His coaching career started as a Student Assistant Coach at Waldorf in 2012. He then became a Graduate Assistant at CSU East Bay until 2015 where he graduated with a Master’s in Business Administration with Honors. In 2016 he became an Assistant Coach at Cañada College and is currently still on the Colts coaching staff.
Joe Kuschell: (summer 2018 Pitching Coach)
Grad Assistant at UOP (1972), Oregon (Fall 1976), Utah (1977-78)
Summer of 1977, started first ever U of Utah Summer team, won the state championship in Utah
Summer collegiate baseball in Bay Area (1978 to 1986) Organized the team and coached it as well
Youth baseball ,6-9 year olds, Gilroy, CA (1987-88)
American Legion Baseball, Anderson, CA (1991 to 1993)
Junior High softball, CVI Middle School, 1997-98, won the league title in 1997
High school softball coach, Liberty Christian HS, Redding, CA, 2000-2001, won league and went
to playoffs and lost to #1 small school team in state 2-1 in 9 innings, coached pitchers
U-16 Travel Softball, Summer 1999 and 2000
Started the North State HS Softball All Star Game in 2000. A north state game featuring HS seniors.
The game was held as a fund raiser for the Make A Wish Foundation.
Foothill HS, Palo Cedro,CA (Redding) started coaching outfielders and pitchers at FHS in 2007. I
helped at FHS through the 2016 season. We had three league titles, two section titles and in 2012
went 30-2 and wound up being ranked as the #30 team in the final CA HS Baseball Poll.
Simpson College, Redding , CA, Fall 2008 helped with the pitchers and outfielders. Fall 2012 and
Spring 2013 helped with the pitchers. Simpson was an NAIA Christian college.
Summers 2011-2013, spent a week at Dr Tom House’s pitching camps down at USC in LA
Fall 2014, Spent four days with Eric Cressey of Cressey performance in MA. Also, worked
with his pitching coach, Matt Blake, for 2 days. I followed up that visit by going down to
CT and spending a couple of days working with Phil Rosengren of BetterPitching.com. A
solid contemporary pitching instructor.
Spring 2016, Spent four days in Nashville, TN working with Lantz Wheeler of the The Baseball
Think Tank. Worked on mechanics ( movement and feel ) and velocity enhancement.
October 2016, Gave pitching clinic to Irish National Baseball Team, Dublin, Ireland
Northlands Community and Technical College, (JC), Thief River Falls, MN, Pitching Coach (Spring 2017)
Genesee Rapids, Houghton, NY, Summer 2017, pitching coach. The team was affiliated with the Fellowship
of Christian Athletes and was a member of the NYCBL. We finished 3rd in the Western Division. Won a
playoff game with the 2nd place team to advance to the Western Division finals. We took the series to
the third and final game before losing to the eventual overall league winner.
December 2017, will attend a coach’s seminar on pitching at Ron Wolforth’s, Texas Baseball Ranch