Commonwealth Results

Where can you find out who was there, as far as the players?

Haven't found them anywhere. I was hoping someone would post. Heard many of the games were slugfests with much more hitting than good pitching, but few details.

The Central team won the gold medal with a win over the West. The North team slugged their way to a 25-10 for the bronze.

As for the slugfests, this is true. I would say that throughout the 8 games, there were about 200 runs scored.

Sounds like some of the Legion scores we've been seeing around here. I guess all the pitching went somewhere else this summer?

same problem in roanoke as legion. pitchers are left defenseless by the foot square strike zone being required by a lot of these guys.

sorry...salem, not roanoke

After I thought about it, there were probably about 170 runs scored - still a lot.

Each team had one or two great pitchers that sat around 90 with good off-speed, but after that the pitching was just good. The hitting just seemed to be better than pitching all weekend.

this is especially for bsblplyr:

would like to know details of the final [gold medal] game...I saw the first 7 games, but had to leave; want to know who pitched and if possible how hard they threw;
thank you

patriot_chuck

In the final game, Trey Roark from Virginia High started for the West and Hardee started for the Central. Roark probably threw low 80s, while Hardee was around mid 80s or so. They both may have topped out a little higher.

In relief, the hardest thrower was probably Shaban from the Central. I would say that he sat in the upper 80s consistenly, but with some control problems.

I hear this is, by far, the most scouted event in Va.. Also, that by making one of the four rosters puts your son in a very good position for playing at the College level,( Assuming he does his work in the classroom).
Thoughts anyone ?
Does anyone have a website they can share ?
Thanks.

Here is the website

Commonwealth Games

CV

Amen to the most scouted event in Virginia. I can add it was the far and away favorite event my son ever attended among showcases, camps, tryouts, etc. The players get a little bit of the Rock Star treatment. No guarantees on playing in college, but it does guarantee exposure to tons of schools, and if your boy has a good three days, very hard to imagine he won't hear from a few folks.

You will hear that getting selected is a lot of politics. Our experience did not bear that out. Necessarily a lot of good players aren't selected, and I'd hate to be the guy that decides on the last 3-4 spots on any roster, but in our situation two local guys were invited to try out knowing next to nobody there (we're from the Valley, the tryouts were in northern Virginia), but both looked great on the field and were selected.

I'd estimate there were between 90-125 coaches present. Some Virginia schools had 2-3 coaches there, every ACC school, some SEC, etc. A very impressive show.

I certainly agree -- it is an amazing showcase event. By my count, looking through the attendance sheet and business cards left at the sign-in desk there were easily 75 schools represented and 25+ Major League teams, but I'm sure that didn't capture everyone. My son played on the North team and I probably have the roster kicking around somewhere. If anyone is still interested I'll try to post.

I am going to leave the politics out of this discussion, but there is one frustrating factor about the Commonwealth Games which I doubt there is an easy fix.
For the last couple of years, the Games have been in conflict with the 17U World Wood Bat Championships in East Cobb, GA. This is also a very heavily scouted event. It is too bad that some players have to choose between the two events. Wish there was a way to avoid the calendar conflict.........

I heard this weekend that the games will be one week earlier in 2008. The first week in July. I hope this is accurate. Now lets hope the WWBA events don't change.

Can anyone confirm ?

I actually think the conflict arose this year for the first time. PG used to do its WWBA 17u first, then the 18u. For whatever reason, they flip-flopped the order of those tourneys this year and created the conflict for rising Sr./17u players.

I sure hope this can be avoided in the future. It would free up a lot more kids to go to East Cobb. VA teams have done well there, and profited from the scouting opportunity there. There are a lot more kids in VA who could come and get seen if they could do both events instead of only one of them.