NATCHEZ — Even Saturday’s bleak weather couldn’t deter the next generation of great American ballplayers.

And when The Dart landed the baseball fields at Frazier school on Saturday, that next generation was busy honing their skills in preparation for the big leagues.

In the cold damp afternoon, five young boys, from 3 to 13, were practicing their pitching and perfecting their swings.

“We do this almost everyday if isn’t raining,” 13-year-old Jacque Hawkins said.

And on Saturday, Hawkins and his cohorts were making the most out of what was left of their Thanksgiving break by utilizing the ball field.

Hawkins said on normal school days he and his friends just play ball in an alley near their neighborhood.

“But this is a lot better,” he said.

Hawkins plays on a local team and conveys what he learns with that team to his pick-up game friends.

Hawkins has a little advice for each of his friends as he pitches to them.

“Swing the bat,” he shouts as one boy stands at the plate. “Just swing!”

And Hawkins has aspirations of taking his ball career far from the baseball fields at Frazier — he wants to go pro.

If given the chance, he said he’d love to play for the Boston Red Sox.

But if for some reason Hawkins can’t go pro, he has a backup plan.

“I’ll play basketball instead,” he said.

But not everyone at Saturday’s game had goals as high as Hawkins.

Patrick Gaffney, 8, was in town from Texas visiting his family when he got in on Saturday’s game.

“I just like to play around,” Gaffney said. “You get to swing and run a lot.”

And some at Saturday’s game probably didn’t really understand the game at all — they just wanted to have fun.

Gaffney’s brother, Sidney, 3, needed his brother’s help to hoist the bat and take a swing.

And when Sidney did eventually get a hit, he just didn’t know he was supposed to run to first base.