And you should know, Dadof3 that Justbaseball's two sons have gone very far in baseball indeed. But I suspect he's also being a little modest about the two of them. They were both well known as young studs in these parts.
Thats awfully kind of you - but I always thought there were better players around us. And certainly there were.
Kind of an interesting story thats relevant I think. When our younger son was going to enter HS, we decided to send him to one of the local private schools that had a good coach, AD, etc... No, not so he could play college ball. Just wanted a good HS experience. But I was concerned he wasn't good enough to play at one of those schools, so I started asking the coaches of 2 schools (I knew both) in particular (SluggerDad surely knows which 2).
Coach A would not only answer, but follow up with an email, phone call...letter in the mail. The message was basically, "Your boy is a superstar and we want him at our school really bad!" He even told him on a shadow day that as a local neighborhood kid he was a critical player for them to get.
Coach B would never answer. Or not in a way I easily understood. He'd say, "Your son will probably be fine wherever he goes. Just make sure he has fun." This caused me some concern - as in, does he think he's borderline? Why is Coach A calling him a superstar when Coach B barely answers?
Son went to Coach B's school (20 minute drive instead of 10 minute walk)...cause I thought he was a better coach and I liked the composition of the student body better - more "linear" from poor kids to rich kids and more diverse. Even though I wasn't sure what the coach thought of him. Ended up being perhaps the best decision we ever made for any of our kids as parents. Tremendous coaching staff - our son's team won everything his junior season and ranked #1 in the nation by PG. And son made varsity as a sophomore and played a whole, whole lot.
But I did, indeed wonder leading up to it.
Oh - and why didn't Coach B ever really answer my questions? Cause he wasn't allowed too by rule and he played by the rules (I didn't even know that at the time) - yet another great lesson in good ethical behavior that helped our son to have terrific reinforcement in HS that complemented what we were teaching at home. Honestly, integrity...hard work...nothing guaranteed.