2004 Rankings

Lockport and all of the rest of the teams in the SICA West.

New Trier...JCA...LyonsTownship...OPRF...Brother Rice...and from the South...Edwardsville

Looks like the usual teams. Summer league is summer league, but I think Schaumburg won it. How are they looking for the spring? Seems Edwardsville is always the top in the South, any other competition down there?

Rock island is always competitive. Chatam should be strong, and dont underestimate libertyville, tough ball club right there...

Oak Park River Forest is ready to roll.

sox, I noticed you mentioned the 2 kids from OPRF in your other post and now OPRF as a top team for this season...any connection with OPRF?

pitchdoc24, just a dad in the know.we will be very good this year.

OPRF has a chance to be good every year. I can't remember a time when they didn't.

JimD45, You are so right. But this year is even better than usual. The chemistry is real good.This years team could actually use a lineup of 4 D1 guys, 1D2 guy with 2 others as possibly D1 and definetely D2 bound. That is 7 of 9 starters that will play @ the next level.I don't think that can be matched, at least in Illinois.That does not even include another highly thought of Jr. pitcher and no less than 4 fellows that could start on most teams as the #1 catcher on the bench.Finally how about 9 pitchers that will see action, all of which can throw 83 or above. Its going to be fun in the ol ballpark at OPRF in 2004!

..."old ballpark"?

Just a few seats under a big tree!

For those of us who have had the pleasure of watching OPRF play at such a high level for so many years it is certainly a ballpark to us. Actually it is as more of a ballpark than most in the chicagoland area. This aint exactly south Fla.,Arizona or Cal. Please pardon my vernacular, I played in a maj. lg. stadium in high school which we also called a ballpark.

Gees, soxnole, don't get so defensive.

My son, Paul Petrulis, was an All State player for Jack Kaiser and the Huskies in 1990.

I did see OPRF play in the playoffs this summer, they are a very solid team. As far as D1 players, have not seen these kids enough to be able to say yay or nay. Chances of northern kids going down to Florida, Texas, etc, or the South in general, to play college are not too great. Sure, a chosen few get the opportunity. It is obvious that up here, guys don't get to play year round. Sure kids take lessons, but I think a lot of people would agree that game experience is the best way to get better. Working on your swing in the cage is great, but getting into a game situation is a lot different, for most. I think if infields were made of wood, guys up here would go error-less during the season. Taking ground balls off the gym floors just isn't the same.

I hope OPRF is really good this year! They have some talented players and good kids. They do not have DOMINANT pitching. They have good pitching, not dominant pitching. I played with several dominant pitchers (Scott Nelson, Jason Klonoski, Ben Shelton, and Sean Lawrence) and even then nobody was handing us a state championship. Until the playoff format changes to double elimination, it's anybody's game(OPRF proved that a few years ago when powerfull teams like Lockport, New Trier, Downers North and others were gone.) They have not shown me that they can be a dominant hitting team like LT was last year. Talent alone just won't get it done. I hope they get it done! Go Huskies!

I THING MT CARMEL CARAVAN HAS A SHOT AT BEING A BETTER TEAM THIS YEAR . WITH BRIAN SPEARS FULL RIDE WITH WICHTA STATE ROBERT SNARSKIS GOING TO ST JOSEPH, AND DAVID CALES AT SHORTSTOP. TARTKO--- I THING YOU MEANT WALKING THE WALK. GOOD LUCK TO YOUR SON HE SHOW WELL IN AZ.AT SWINGTOWNS EVENT.

I played college ball up here and we went down to play teams in FL for spring break. Of course it was our first time outside and it was their 12th game. One thing it did do was get us better for the season up North. Eventually, we started beating some of those teams down there. Needless to say, they were embarrased and did not want to play us again. The more a kid can play up here during the summer and fall, the better. Northern kids need to play up a level in the summer so they see what they are going to be facing at the next level...and it helps get them better for the spring season.

Got to push D-C again to make a run at the state tournament!!

Geez Tar,Offended I am not, however Stanford was NEVER mentioned.(except on a different thread about budding superstar Porter of Rolling Meadows) My son is committed to FSU. The only 2 reasons more northern boys don't head south are 1)Money and 2)We don't give our guys a chance.Ruairi went to FSU Super Skills Camp last July and simply outplayed the other 43 guys there.He was offered a ship on the second day of a six day camp. If a kid doesn't attend a camp where he would like to play he won't have the chance to talk turkey or impress that particular coach. This is the single biggest reason. Our kids tend to go to showcases or to northern camps. If your really good and flush and have the cahones like Porter OConnor and McFolling then good things at least can happen. Finally at no time did I predict anything like a State Champ. Mis qoting and exaggerating are not conducive to the fun we should be having bragging about our favorite team. Thats all I was doing, stating the fact that OPRF will be very good this year.

tar;this is really very cool. i am about to explain exactly why we should all be going the camp route. what i did not know in july when we went to tallahassee is that a college coach can make any offers he wants as long as you are on campus !!!!!!!!!!on the 1st day of camp they spokie at length w rauiri about all things academic and baseball.on the second day he was asked to set up a meeting with his father for the purpose of offering a scholarship.It doesn't hurt to have your house in order w/regard to grades and baseball experience.Also in ruairi's case the only school he's ever wanted to attend was FSU.By attending the camp at the school or schools of your choice you have a golden VERY kosher oppurtunity.

sox...Do the "noles" play at a new field or is the old one (last time there was in 1993) just "fixed up"?

Thanks.

beenthere-
I believe FSU has had the same field for a while now, just did a little renovating!

Hope your holidays went well....

Slide

BeenthereIL,the stadium has been completely redone with a new roof,seats,dugouts and digs the pros would envy. The locker room is all oak, the video room is amazing and the Stadium facade has been completely torn down and rebuilt to match the gorgeus new Doak Cambell football Stadium.must be seen to be believed. The cost was 15 million plus.

A player from up North needs to go to camps and showcases in the Southeast or Southwest if that is where they want to play. Like it has been said, schools like FSU, ASU, Stanford, etc. don't need to leave their own backyards to find players that can play at their school. For a northern player to have a chance to go to that school, they must attend the school's camp and show well. I went to 2 ASU camps my junior year of high school. They said they liked me, even though I wasn't a big guy, but I just needed to play more, like the guys that live in AZ. I played upwards of 125 games after that in 2002, all in Illinois. My dream was to always go to ASU to play ball, and even though I'm not their now, I'm in their "backyard" at a juco so I still may have the chance of going there. All in all, a player from up north needs to go down south to a partcular school's camp if tht is the school they want to go to. None of the major schools from down south go north to find players, nor do they need to. Good luck to anyone that wants to go south and play ball. Hard work does pay off.

"Baseball players are made in the off-season."

my teamates and i dont really care how many division one players you have or what your record was, or what your preseason rank will be. or how hard you throw,or where youre going to college or who hits the ball 500 hundred feet. it makes me sick when i see all this mumbo jumbo hype. its not where you start its where you end.my team and i have heard it since sophomore year. we all thought we had to be extraordinary ballplayers that threw 90 and could hit the ball 500 feet to get recognition. and our coach has long tried to enstill it in our heads that all that stuff doesnt mean anything. as you can see from last summer,were just now starting to realize he's right. dont get me wrong, much respect goes to the providence program, but ask them what happened last year when 8 juniors took it to their 4 or 5 division 1 "prospects". Rankings dont mean anything, whether prospect or team. and i cant stand when people say whats gonna happen this year, or whats gonna happen tomorrow. they dont know the first thing about tomorrow. you guys need to remember what baseball is all about. playing hard, no matter what, with no fear. im just trying to help all those ball players out there that think they need to be superstars to be successful, cuz everyone knows that there are plenty of them out there. work hard for yourself, listen to your coach, be a team, die for you team, and sell it to everyone that you care, or else they wont care for you. what makes my team strong,and not just on the field, is were just a bunch of guys that will be there for another member at any time. maybe thats cuz we're all so close, and we all go to a private,pretty, little catholic school . but thats how every team should play.or there wont be chemistry. sorry for exploding but all of this has just been stored inside of me for quite some time. and since its my senior year, and i wont be in contant with any of you next year, besides griff and jp, i feel much better lettin this out.



good luck to all teams this season... ( this post was meant to be in no offense to the oak park team)

Dan,

I agree totally!!

Danny,

Hello. ...and, welcome back. Studying a bit, are we? (lol)

Need info as to where you and Trader are likely going to go next year. Heard SIU for you and UManitoba for Jake (just kidding, Jake!) Congrats again to Jake and JCA and to you as a part of the student body on the State championship!

Hope you have a good winter workout season and see you when the flowers begin to bloom. Maybe before. Are you going to the Ball Park on the 25th?

How is mom and dad?

Dan, I can only hope that OPRF chemistry will equal what you guys seem to have attained. Good Luck Dan. By the way small Catholic schools can be big players in the scholarship arena. Check out the Fenwick teams of the late 80,s, they couldn't beat Lyons or OPRF often but managed to send 4 or 5 guys to big time D1 schools.

soxnole,

I heard alot about Porter at Rolling Meadows, is he really worth seeing play if I'm home for spring break when GBS plays Rolling Meadows.

GBsouth12, Brian Porter along with a couple of others completely dominated the high end travel tournaments from the age of 12 on. He is certainly the single best base stealer in his class. He has all the tools. Hits with power and to all fields. The best part is that he probably should shut it down as a player and dedicate himself to pitching. Has a lot of arm angles with 86+ speed and as much experience as anyone in big games. Ruairi OConnor says he is easily the most difficult of all the guys he has caught,the ball moves all over the place.Impressed the Stanford coaches at camp last year.

Sounds like LT,HC,DGN and GW should not even show up this spring. Lets give OPRF the title right now. They must have won the Summer Title as well.

good point HC dad, let them think that, during the summer we had a good showdown (LT + OPRF) that easily could have gone either way and costly mistakes were made by both teams. OPRF won the gae, but The outcome could be very different come spring.

soxnole..."dominated the high end travel tournaments from age 12 on"...

We've played with the Upper Deck Cougars from age 12 on and all of the kids are now high school seniors.

Which tournament (s) did he dominate and with what team?

Thanks.

He along with Maugheri,Anna and Rauiri were the dominating players at that particular level in those particular years. I believe that Ryan is 1 year older. Porter played with Ruairi for 5 consecutive years and remember we (Palatine Travellers and Arlington Longshots)like Upper Deck traveled all over the country and did not play in a lot of local tournaments. we were in KC,Omaha,Casper,Detroit,Cedar Rapids,St. Louis,and Memphis most of the time. I'll be the 1st to admit that the Upper Deck pitching had our # more often than not.

i was apart of the udc team for a while and we always had good matchups between palatine and the longshots it was always fun

is this the same Porter at Rollng Meadows from the last 2 years? He pitched against my son's team atleast 3 times and got rocked all three times....that doesn't seem dominating to me. I know that the MSBL doesn't get much attention on this board, but if he struggled against the teams their, how could he "dominate" against others....the competition only gets stiffer.

Mde5,nobody's perfect. and he is still only a junior. Also he did not play Varsity as a freshman.another porter?I'll look into his record against your sons team if you tell me what team that is.hard to believe he was bombed 3x.

I, personally, don't remember three times, but my dad remembers just about every little thing there is. I just know last year when we played at Schaumburg we rocked the Porter kid that everyone was raving about. Then again, he was a sophomore, I think, and we were a team of just about all seniors. In my opinion, seniors should beat up on sophomores just because of the age difference.

When we played OPRF in our third game of the year, your son hit 2 bombs to right off our best pitcher. He's definitely a ball-player. Good luck at FSU.

P.S. MDe5 is my dad just so you're not confused.

"Baseball players are made in the off-season."

Hey MDe5 and AmericasPastime 4 do you have any idea how Schaumburg is going to be this year, last year they were a real impressive team, but as you said they were mostly seniors.

Honestly, I didn't think they were going to do well at all, then they went and won the summer state title. I know it's not the real thing, but it's still an accomplishment. I would look for them to be a solid team that will do the little things very well. Every practice isn't far off from the practices I'm going through in college. I was very skeptical of him, but he's done some things very well that a lot of other coaches don't do. The only problem with him is his players are so scared of him because he puts a lot of pressure on them.

Anyways, back to the team. They will only have a few seniors, but have good talent at the junior level. They won't have a lot of power though, so don't plan on seeing a lot of home runs from them.

"Baseball players are made in the off-season."

Thanks,Pastime, Even tho he hit 2 Jax you guys were good enough to beat another terriffic soph in Tim Dennehy. When Brian Porters pitches straighten out he becomes avg. like all the rest. Thing is and my son can attest to it those times are rare.His pitches are usually jumping all over the place. You guys were just a little to tough for these guys last year.