Dominion District April 24 Games

With a couple of exceptions, yesterday's Central Region slate was absolutely awful. Looks like the average score was 12-1. VHSL needs reorganizing.

The problem is the mixing of the city teams with the county teams. We need to get all those city teams into one district where they can be competitive with each other instead of getting their brains beat out game after game. When the county teams pair up, by and large those are good games.

Then don't you run into a situation where the champion of that all city district gets an automatic bid into regional play and whoever draws that team basically gets a bye? I would think that the way it is currently is best for postseason play, although certainly not best for regular season matchups or for the morale of those city schools.

We should look into whether these city schools might qualify for AA treatment. I think some if not all of them do. Or, maybe we could let them pool players, that is, form one team out of several schools.

Otherwise, I agree it would give two suburban teams virtual byes in the tourney, but that would be a small price to pay to get a worthwhile season for the city teams that would help them encourage their existing players and recruit new players. Huguenot and Wythe have 16 district games each, and with the cap of 20, that leaves them only the two games against each other, plus not more than 4 non-district matchups they can pick, where they can even have a hope of being competitive.

14 slaughter rule losses per season should not be asked of anyone. It's a wonder they have players who stay the course through a whole season and even come back for more the next year.

The really sad part is, there are players at each of these schools who show talent, but no one player can pull a program up from the depths. They must feel like they are trapped in a situation that allows them no hope for advancement, recognition or college recruitment. And a lot of them don't have the resources for travel ball.

I had a talk with one kid from Huguenot after yesterday's drubbing they endured. This kid hit a HR off a top pitcher last week, though Huguenot of course still got slaughtered. This game he pitched and showed 83-84 mph stuff, despite some mechanics issues, but because of those same issues he couldn't throw strikes consistently. I gave him a few pointers, trying to help. I honestly believe this kid could throw strikes at 86-87 with minor tweaking and consistent practice. He has a "live arm" but is having to figure things out himself, with no pitching instructor to ask for help.

The question is, are we ever going to do anything to help build up programs that can compete and thus, nurture players like him? Or are we just going to take turns whipping them year after year, even though those games aren't even fun for us?

I'm with you completely. I hope my post wasn't taken as supporting the city schools getting beaten repeatedly, because that is demoralizing for those schools while doing absolutely nothing for the team that is on the winning end. I only meant to present the other side of the argument. As you allude to in your post, baseball is missing out on some real talent because of the lack of resources in these areas.

And, it isn't restricted just to city schools. Look at Highland Springs.... always a AAA football power, basketball state champs this year, and I believe they generally struggle in baseball. There is a similar situation at Meadowbrook in Chesterfield. Certainly a lack of athletes isn't the problem in those two situations. But selling baseball to those athletes is like asking them to sign up to be routinely embarrassed and demoralized. I have nothing but praise for those individuals who are able to persevere through the season at these schools.

As to Meadowbrook, it's pretty bad when you can offer a former major leaguer (Johny Grubb) as the coach and still not have players come out for the team.