How to improve the quality of NH Baseball

i agree with your theory, difficult to achieve. my kids are gone, so i have no kids involved either. but i love the game and try when i can to help.

over the years in our town legion and sr babe haven't worked together. this comes and goes depending who's stirring which drink. it's never what's best for the player's.
let me start by saying in my opinion every community or whatever needs a goal. maybe the goal is to make the high school team better,or the legion team or whatever that goal is it needs to be a full bore commitment. in order for the goal to be met you need to cultivate players preferably good players. you'll alway's get the dads looking out for their own. but in a perfect world as the program/team goals are met, so are the individual players goals.

they need to learn at a young age what is expected of them in terms of progressing their talent. good coaching for a sustained time, not the new dads every few years.( that said ,we'd be screwed without them).

the elite player handle has different meanings in different places. in my opinion that's why there are more travel team's than ever. can't make the really good team........we'll start our own travel team. again the money thing.

it isn't easy to do, but apopka fl. turned there community into a baseball hotbed as did east cobb ga. it takes a lot of people with the same goal. it can't be about money or trophies, but the more succesful the program becomes they will come as well.

i could talk all day about this, but typing with one finger drags me down. good idea, tough to execute.

I agree with you, now days everyone has to be a winner and get a trophy. Let me tell you how it is in the north country. I will start at the middle school, 7th and 8th grade teams have between 30-40 kids on each team, one coach for each, no cuts. High school has 2 paid coaches, one for varsity, they take the best 11-12 players, everyone else is on the JV team. That number is anywhere from 25-35 kids, then the JV gets slpit in two teams and splits the JV schedule as well. No cuts. Babe Ruth takes all the kids and puts them on teams, Sr Babe Ruth has 11 kids this summer. The teams around us are falling apart with not enough kids, There are four teams in our sr babe ruth league, as of today 2 of those don't have enough kids to field a team. So kids that really want to play have to travel long distances to play, most travel longer than the lenght of the game. And parents don't want to travel, whats the answer I don't know. But the system is watered down. Parents get ****ed when their kids don't play as much as the good players, they want equal playing time, I think we need more peole invovled that don't have kids in programs, I'll give an example, I coach sr. babe ruth, my son plays infield, pitches, and bats in the 3, 4, or 5 spot depending on the team we playing and other things. Parents get ****ed that this happens, I tell them that he is very good thats why, do you practice with your son? do you throw with him, do you pitch batting practice to him, to hit ground ball to him? does your son work out? There answer is most times is, "that what your team practices are for". No they are not, if your son wants to get better he has to work at, you have to help him. They don't like that either. You just can win, everybody should play and have fun, maybe we should stop keeping score to. Everybodys a winner!!!

That will be very difficult to do in this state because as it is there are travel teams taking players away from their towns. While these kids play against other teams if your main idea is to promote and better NH baseball as a whole then shouldn't these kids be playing for their respective Sr. Babe and eventually legion towns.

With that being said there are far too many legion teams in this state. There is no reason for their to be 20-22 Legion teams playing within the state on NH. From what I have seen and read about early on this year many of the teams are going to be jockeying with one another because the talent pool has been diluted by Post's opening up all around them. Take Jutras for example who when I played was a perennial powerhouse year in and year out, but now their coaches have talked like they might not have enough players soon to field a team with Goffstown and Bedford forming teams. This is not to say these towns should because they are both extremely talented baseball towns from the ground up. I think that it would be beneficial to have teams combine with one another and have the best 18 players from a certain area play together. As for the kids who are not on those teams that is what Jr. Legion and Sr. Babe would be for because while it is not Legion it is still baseball. With the combining of teams it not only makes the competition better but allows for more games to be played because there will not be so many "required" district games. These are just my thoughts however and people can agree or disagree with me doesnt really matter to me.

This is a very interesting thread for me. While I am not from NH but from MA I can see the same things that you guys do. Too many legion teams and not enough "feeder" programs. 4 years ago we started a Sr. Babe team, my son was double rostered on both, quickly it became apparent that he would be playing all the time at legion, when he did come down to us he would get an at bat or so but we would not have him or any of the coaches sons replace one of our starters because it did not seem fair. Now none of our coaches have a kid on the SR Babe team. We have remained because 1st we beleive we are good coaches and 2nd we did not want the SR Ruth team to be parent oriented so to speak. We work with the legion team and will double roster only pitchers, if a kid is not getting his innings at legion and needs some work we talk to the legion coaches and we will start him for a game or 2 so he can get some innings and improve. (While we want to win, it is secondary in light of the program we are trying to establish) When we 1st started we had alot of 17- 18 y/o on the team now we have 1, we have gotten younger and beleive we are really helping baseball in our town/ community. It also really helps that our Sr Ruth league is wood bat, it helps the kids to learn to hit and pitchers to learn how to "throw to the bat". I can tell you that 99% of the kids that we get at 14 or 15 y/o do not know how to hold a wood bat, (some of them actually think that breaking a bat shows some sort of machismo), unbeleivable. We state at the beginning of the year that playing time is earned, a privlege not a right. We have some kids leave every year because a lot of these kids can play in a lower league and be a star. Their parents are usually the motivating factor in this, it is too bad because they can learn alot from this level of play. We never have asked one of our subs to miss one of these lower level games. They are excused and allowed to play at the lower level. We also require the kid/ young man to be his own advocate, we will not talk to parents about playing time, only the player and we will tell them why they are not playing as much as they think they should. This seems to be working in our area. Thankfully we have a decent legion coach that can see the advantages of this system. Over the last 2 years 70% of our kids have gone onto legion and have had some success. Just my 2 cents.

I feel like the response that we can't do anything is cheating our baseball players here in New Hampshire. We have so many 15, 16, 17 and 18 year olds leaving Legion and Senior Babe Ruth to go play AAU or some leagues out of State because the current talent pool has been divided. I feel that those of us in positions of influence need to stand up and make changes, our goal should not be to make one program the best program, but rather to set the goal of making New Hampshire baseball the best it can be. We want to see our ball players go on to play college baseball, we take pride in our players when they are drafted and we step back and really appreciate when one of our players joins the ranks of major leaguer. When Brian Wilson was named to the all star game in 2008, it sent a clear message to NH ball players that their dreams could be achieved. We the individuals who have chosen to be a part of NH baseball be it Legion, Senior Babe, Cal Ripken, Little League or the GSBA owe it to the younger generation. We owe it to them to teach them how to respect the game, provide them opportunities to grow as individual players while still understanding the concept of teamwork. I am willing to sit down with anyone who wants to join me on improving the OVERALL quality of baseball played here in NH while emphasizing the level of respect that each player should have to the game.

I do have a son entering the age group you are talking about. He will be entering High School next year as a freshman. He is currently 14 and playing Babe Ruth in the city of Nashua. He will be playing 14U All-Stars to represent his town in districts and hopefully states. Next year he will be 15 and finish out Babe Ruth. Again he will most likely play 15U All-Stars etc. He also this year plays 14U AAU but most likely will not play AAU next year. The summer after his sophomore year he most likely will go play Legion or Sr. Babe Ruth. My big question is how will NH baseball get him noticed by colleges (not just NE colleges either)or even some pro scouts? Will they want to travel to NH to see an improved Legion program and the kids playing in it? As a parent that is my concern. Heck I don't even know if my kid will end up good enough to even think about being good enough to be seen in the first place!! But if my son was to play on a good select 16U or 17U travel team that summer and they played in tournaments in East cobb, GA or Jupiter, FL or tourney's like that I'd know that the scouts are there seeing the best kids (that can afford it anyways) in one location. Which opportunity is going to best get my kid seen by the college coaches and scouts, travel ball or Legion / Sr Babe ruth? Unfortunately I think the answer is travel ball, especially for an excellent player from NH. Jeff Locke got drafted with the 50th pick because he joined different travel teams and pitched in those tournaments and got noticed by the scouts out there. It wasn't from playing high school or legion ball in NH.

Now don't get me wrong I'm all for improving the caliber of NH ball as I'd love nothing more then to have scouts and college recruiters coming TO NH to see our players as they would know how good the top players were. I think tweaking the Legion program and Sr. Babe ruth programs would only help improve the overall quality of NH players. But the elite players will still leave for travel teams as they give the best odds at getting seen on a national level in big time tournaments.

Jeff Locke was my neighbor, and I coached him in 7th and 8th grade at the middle school. He was something to see then, I have never seen another kid like that. He was way above kids his own age. He has all the tools, arm, speed, power bat, smarts about the game. We had a team show up for a game at the middle school, when I gave them the line up card, Jeff was pitching, the coach said that they were not going to play unless we pitched another player. Our AD made me pitch somebody else. Jeff's dad was ****ed. Jeff's dad still gets to this day about that. Back to the topic, if the player wants to get better he has to play in these travel team that have better talent. The cost is so much alot of kids get left behind. My son is going into his junior year in sept, we are looking now for what he will do next summer to get himself out there and get looked at. Everything is alot of travel from here, closest legion ball is plymouth. Hpefully will find something.

if i recall correctly jeff played legion not travel. but he did play in a tourney with farrah bldrs out of new jersey. thats where he started getting noticed on a larger scale.

my son played against him in legion ball,gret talent great kid.

my point is you don't just get better playing travel ball. more practice is better,cheaper. if you are worth seeing then find yourself a place to be seen.

this is such a diverese state it would be very difficult to say whats good for everyone. conway is a trek to anywhere. and you may only have 2 kids that are going to play above hs.( just an example)

I'm certainly not putting down Legion ball or Sr Babe Ruth. It is just that if you want to be seen you either need to join an elite travel team or get lucky enough to fine one that you can play for in some of the big tournaments. Showcases like PG and others will also help to an extent in getting noticed.

From what little I know it does seem like Jeff Locke was way ahead of his age as a player. So not surprising that he got himself noticed by playing up a couple of years usually on different teams.

My question is how do you get a talented NH kid noticed and not just the super elite NH kid which happens once every few years. For Locke it was the travel tourneys he got to pitch in for other teams, for Chris Lambert it was a PG showcase that he burst on to the scene with. Who was the last NH kid to go anywhere just based on high school ball and Sr Babe ruth / Legion ball?

And to possibly show the affect of travel ball on local NH ball it appears that Salem will not be fielding a 14U nor a 15U Babe Ruth All-star team this year.

Merrimack will not be fielding a 15U team either it seems.

My guess is too many kids playing Travel Ball and they are not allowed to play Babe Ruth, strictly Travel Ball. Thankfully our AAU program was formed with the idea to have the boys play Babe Ruth and to play All-Stars as well. 9 of the 14U All-Stars are from my son's team in fact. But there are probably 3-4 of the best 14U Nashua players not playing Babe ruth due to travel ball commitments.

GSBA - Do you know for sure that Hudon is or is not playing Babe Ruth this year? (He did play last year)
Just curious as we face them first in the district tourney...lol.

red sox

i'm not sure if your talking about kids drafted out of high school. we don't have all that many.

if your talking college, my thing is you don't need to play on a travel team from 10 to 18 to get noticed. you probably paid for a year of college over that time. we have ton's of kids that have gone on to play at good colleges.

i don't think legion or sr babe will ever think it through enough to be the elite thing. which really is too bad, but from what i hear, it's the same every where. i think and have thought for years we can do alot better job for our boy's.

it is hard to get every team on the same page,everyone has an agenda of some sort. i agree it's worth the effort.

Redsox,
I have to echo 20dad's post. Do you really think that most of these kids have any sort of chance to be drafted by mlb??? You are talking one every 7-8 years.
Even if you personally have enough intelligence to know that NH ballplayers are a bit behind the eight-ball due to the fact of where we are geographically, most AAU parents spout off about the whole "travel outside of New England boundaries" exposure. If they are good enough they will get noticed wherever they are. Locke played Legion, not AAU.
I wonder what the percentage of players participating in NH AAU actually go to a school outside New England. That would be an interesting study.
What they don't realize is that NH baseball player's, rookie-elite, best chance to be noticed is to enhance NH baseball leagues. It disgusts me to see how many parents can't just trust NH coaches to make the right decisions. To, please, just to trust their kids to be either good enough or not. If they are "not" and don't make the team then don't spout off about politics and the ineptitude of the coaches rather than face facts that their kid just needs to work harder to get better.
Bottom line, as long as there is some "coach" who wants to make some extra money there will be travel ball and NH baseball as a whole will continue to weaken.

Here is my take on how my son got noticed by colleges.

As freshman played on HS team where colleges recruiting a junior teammate(had good game that day).

Sophmore, HS wins state championship and colleges attended playoffs (he did fairly well while they were in attendance)

Legion team wins State title and goes to last game of regionals (many colleges attended and some pro scouts) and he did ok during this time.

Word of mouth from opposing coaches via their college network connections.

AAU coaching connections but not from colleges attending AAU events. His team did not play at high profile events.

Notice the above, nothing about showcases (he went to 1 last year and it was a waste of time, a few emails but mosting come to my college camps).

The only thing I can conclude is you have to be lucky to be on good teams, or be on a team when someone comes to watch an opponent or teammate. I can tell you word of mouth has been my son's best friend. Also, if you are going to pay for an
AAU/travel team make sure they play at major events like East Cobb etc.

What most of players and parents have a hard time coming to terms with is that it is extremely hard to play in college at any level. There are kids from all different areas going to these schools with the expectation of making the team. If a player is lucky enough to get a scholarship as a freshman there is going to be a whole crop of kids with the same expectations as him. Now if you go to a school that cannot give scholarships then it becomes even harder, and each year there are going to be more and more kids coming in to compete for spots. Nobody has playing time guaranteed. There has to be a realization at some point with these players and parents that they might not be good enough for that Div I school they dreamed of playing for as a kid, which is not a bad thing, everyone has aspirations of being a professional athlete.

I am willing to bet College Coaches do not care whether you played AAU or travel teams growing up but rather are you talented enough to play for their team. Most of the top players in the state stay within New England to play. There obvious exceptions each year like of players who go on to play outside of NH. As nhmonty said his son has been playing for Portsmouth Legion in NH who won everything baseball related last year in NH and word spread about him. If the player is good enough he will get noticed and word will spread.

i would add this, parents should go to a few college games and see the speed of the game. within a few hr drive for most in NH, you can see D 1 2 3 games being played. most all aren't to shabby either.

that can really open your eyes.

in 1999 we started bringing a team of 12 yr olds to cooperstown. not to showcase or anything that crazy, but to show the kids and parents what kind of talent was out there. that continuied until this yr when LL started earlier. i like to think it opened some eyes, but i think, like most things as time went on it lost it's true intent.


the rest of us can't bank on mikey mo's result's. they will find his kind of talent anywhere. but there aren't to many like him.

in my opinion there is a place for everyone to play............. you need to know what level that is.

nhmonty way college did your son attend, and did what did he get for playing time.

My son will be a senior at Portsmouth High School. Yesterday was the first day for official recruiting and he received 6, calls from D-I programs, 4 in Northeast and 2 from south.

He (and we) were surprised he got a call from an ACC school in south you never sent him a letter or email. The head coach called him and offered him a 50% baseball scholarship on the phone.

He has received a lot of contact from his workout for the Yankees Area Code team. I believe my son told him the coach saw his workout and thus his interest and offer. I can't confirm this because my kid is at a tournament in NY and I have not had a chance to talk with him.

Here is something for all NH players to consider. I got this from Astros scout who is recruiting my son for his Fall prospect team. At the Area Code workout all college and pro scouts go into centerfield for the 60 timing. When my kid's turn came they announced his name and number and a little info on him, namely they said he was the NH Gatorade Player of the year. One comment from a scout (not sure if college or pro) said "yeah they only have 15 baseball players in NH" this is what all our NH kids face and its unfair.

We just came back for Tournament of Stars in NC and I can tell you that our NH players can play with these kids they just need more games at a higher level. My kid echo this opinion.

Our NH kids are good and they don't deserve to be classified as not-players because of where they live but they do have some catching up to do.

I think the key like NHmonty said is "catching up" the season is short here in New Hampshire. We are still having snow storms during the high school season sometimes. That's why summer and fall baseball are important it lengthens the season. Players in Texas, Florida, etc can play year round if they choose.

Monty, how did Mike, and his team do at the tourney? Are there stats or anything online?

monty, I didn't know your son was Mike. My son plays for Kennett, we didn't play you guys this season. What is portsmouth losing next year. What does mike do in the fall, ganite state ball or something else? I read the story in the union leader, good story. keep us up dated on the going on of the recruiting stuff. Any advice or suggestions to pass on, my son is going to be a junior next year, he is the one of the better players up here, I don't know if you guys heard down south but during the Hanover game the runner from Hanover ran into him, the ball was hit to third and the thrid baseman threw the ball down the base line into the runner, as my son was catching the ball the runner arrived and run into him, bent his wrist backwards and snaped both bones in his forearm above the wrist. Non throwing hand, just got the cast of and working out know. It was three games before the tournament started. First time Kennett has made the tournament since the Jeff Locke days.

IronWill,

Just an FYI but Jeff Locke was discovered on the national stage when he attended the WWBA tournament in Jupiter Florida in 2005 with Farrah's Builders out of New Jersey. Here is a quote from PGStaff (creator of Perfect Game) about Jeff,

quote:

Jeff Locke,

You do not need to answer questions about yourself any longer. Usually those who post on here do not possess your ability.

Thanks to Farrah's Builders and more importantly yourself, everyone in America that recruits or scouts is going to know your name shortly.

I was on a cart passing the outer blue fields going to the red complex when I heard a big smack in the catchers mitt. I quickly looked at the nearest gun and saw 92. After stopping to watch I saw a 93. All from an 2007 6'2 lefty from New Hampshire. Please keep working hard!

He may not have been a full time player on a travel team but it was his experience on an elite travel team that got him noticed. I am sure that playing high school ball and Legion ball helped him to develop his god given ability to take advantage of the opportunity he had.

Doesn't change the fact that if you are good enough- you will be seen. There are plenty of scouts that go to Legion games (especially in the playoffs) and as a Varsity coach who is active with college coaches I can tell you that if I had a kid who was a LHP throwing 92 then I would contact D1 schools and the handfull of MLB scouts I have contact with and let them know. My guess is that they would be interested.
I have a LHP who throws 84-87 and he was contacted by 5 schools yesterday, high D2 and D1 programs. Hasn't played a game on a travel team in his life. I have helped four different players go to D1 programs in both New England and in the mid-west, none have played on travel teams but good old high school and Legion.
Bottom line you can try to justify your position all you want but, again, if you are good enough to be seen you will be seen no matter where you play. Go ahead and throw your money at those travel teams, it is your money to waste.

while i agree playing on travel teams isn't needed. it is in the eye of the beholder,my son played travel a few years back. we called it AAU. there weren't many around back then. he did play legion from 15 on.

my point is 95% of those players played in college. not all d1 but they played.


i wouldn't trade the times we had for anything. bonding with my son, making new friends that i still have today, priceless in my mind.

while i agree we can do better here, we can't paint with such a broad brush. whats good for one town won't work in another.

i'll add one more thing.i've put together a fall ball team for the last 10 yrs. this group of young players that i see are not committed. they don't showup,etc. again not to paint with a broad brush.

Shipbuilder 2 and fivehole,

Sorry I didn't respond to you sooner, we just got home from Albany AABC tournament which was cancelled due to rain.

My son had a ball at the Tournament of Stars but he was disappointed he didn't play more. Not sour grapes but we both feel the NH player stigma may have effected his playing time. However, he did get in all 5 games but only had 8 plate appearances. He was one for 5 with a double, 2 walks and HBP once. He stuck out 3 times on 0-2, 1-2 curves/sliders. The pitching at TOS was off the charts. As a batter you may get one pitch to hit, if you miss and get behind in the count its lights out - my kid found that out in a hurry. Not like up here were most times hitting behind the count isn't a problem. To give you a reference how good the pitching was, ESPN-Rise Magazine just named Jake Rodriguez (Calf) as it Junior (school year) Baseball Player of the Year. Jake is going to Oregon State on full scholarship and he was on Michael's team at TOS. We went 0-17. Bryce Harper was also on the team. They lost in the championship game 8-7, they had a four run lead going into the ninth and the pitcher emploded and gave up 4 runs.

To answer the question about Portsmouth next year, I think they will be very competitive but my pick is St. Thomas. I also liked what I saw of Souhegan and Bedford this year (of the teams we played). Mike Fransoso is a big loss because he gets on base alot (didn't hit as well this year) and his defense is excellent. Nobody can answer the question who will play SS next year? Peter Bergeron will be missed, he had a great year at the plate. I am sure we have replacements for the other 5 seniors lost. Our pitching will be ok with Nate Jones who is getting D-I interest (Bryant, William & Mary and St. Johns etc) and Keegan Taylor did a great jot this year - I don't know what we have for pitching at the JV level. We have 4 starters returning in Jones, O'Leary, Gonsalves and Montville. I doubt very much that the win streak will stay in tact.

Regarding fall baseball my son plays football and he has a tuff decision to make this year. The Houston Astro's scount in NJ wants him to play on his fall prospect team. It been a great year of exposure for my kid but he hasn't played much baseball - he needs another 40 games against high level pitchers. I don't know what he is going to do?

Next post on NH players and recruiting

Fivehole,

On the recruiting front, the first thing I would recommend is reading all information on this web-site, its has been a great help to me. 20dad had helped me alot as his son went through this process so locking on with someone who has been there is a great resource.

Ironwill, noted what he does for his players who have college potential and that's important. Talk with your High School coach to see how he can help your son.

As noted before my kid and Nate Jones have benefited from being on HS and Legion teams that won championships. Iron, probably knows more about his than I do but I have not seen many college scouts at regular HS and Legion games unless they are following someone. Of the 16 reg season games this year only once did a college coach come to our game. Two coaches emailed my son ahead of time to say they were coming (both same game after their season was over). Here is how being in a high profile event (playoffs)helps; after the Class I championship game my son received about 6/8 emails from colleges he had not heard from before (BC, Northeastern etc)

Getting the letters in the mail and emails has been exiciting but its hard to gage the interest. Lots of come to my camp stuff. Anytime your player is asked to fill out a questionnere do it! I was talking to my son yesterday about a player on his travel team. Big kid from Mass.and a very good baseball player. He has yet to hear from a coach on first two days of offical recruiting. My son told me he never filled out any questionneres sent to them. Did this send the signal that he wasn't interested? Why take a chance!

I was with Conner Lyons of Trinity, Nate Jones and my son the past two days (they play on same summer team)and they were getting calls from colleges on Wednesday. I can tell you that almost all the coaches asked the three of them will they be at WWB tournament in Georgia next week because they want to see more of them against a high level of competition. Most of these coaches were from Div I programs (my kids calls yesterday were from Clemson and Geogia Southern)It appears this is a major scouting event. If a player from NH wants exposure they should try to latch onto a summer team that will attend this event.

My kid received more than his fair share of publicity this year but I can tell you there are many players in NH that are as good or better than him - anyone of them were deserving of the awards. As parents, coaches etc we need to get our NH kids exposure because they can play with the best of them

Ironwill,

I am not saying that to get some notice you HAVE to play travel ball. Just saying to get national exposure it helps a ton, but as you pointed out with your "throw your money at" comment it can be quite expensive to join these big time programs!! I have no ties to any of the programs nor does my son play for one. But as NHMonty will tell you there is a NH ball player bias out there on a national level. I am glad to hear that as a coach you are proactive in helping your players get the recognition, we certainly need more of that. And I am new to all this at the higher level. Maybe there are more scouts and college recruiters at Legion ball and such then I am giving credit for. I certainly hope so. Heck my kid is only 14 god only knows if he will even develop into a player that would be worthy of recognition. I just know that back in the late 80's and early 90's you heard of a few NH kids getting drafted and nowadays it is a rare accurance it seems. Maybe it is becuase our kids are more likely to go to college for the education compared to kids who play year round in the south and west so teams will draft those kids in the mid to late rounds instead of NH kids who will go the school route most often. Who knows.

Let me ask you, is a kid better off playing Legion ball when he is older over Senior Babe ruth or are they pretty much the same? Son is still a year off from needing to make that decision but am curious as to what you and others think.

i really don't fully agree with the nh stigma, unless your a position player.

we have had some players dafted out of high school, not very many.i'm not saying all of them, but most of them were pitchers. this is where it pay's to be from nh, fresh arm usually not over worked. that's what i've heard from scouts anyway.

now if your a position player from up north.........you are behind the 8 ball. there are thousands of high school ss that get many more grounders than our guy's. but you can get a very good education,play college ball at a reduced rate.

while playing more games are talked up, unless it's against better teams. the umps are getting the most out of it. kids need rep's, 50 60 grounders/flyballs. throws swings etc. no need to spend a bundle to get these things.

while i've heard you need to be seen on a national level. you can take every legion team in this state to east cobb, but you'll just be frustrated. you need IT. not sure really how to describe IT, but you know IT when you see IT.

a kid can go 0 for 3 and be better than he was last week......did he improve? sure, but he probably isn't living up to somebody's needs.

the question, how to improve the quality of nh baseball. is really unanswerable. great discusion, great ideas. in my mind, we need to make they 2nd and 3rd tier player better.

what makes the good players good, is done way before they pick up a bat. it's the same thing makes them better. IT.

Monty,
We just sonething today from Franklin Pierce, it is a Exposure Clinic the end of the month. They are charging $65. I think we will send the boy, will get to see how he looks amongst the other players.

In terms of pure exposure I would personally say Legion is the route to go. Others will have their opinion, but the college coaches I talk to are more familiar with Legion than Senior Babe. Some areas have a high level of Senior Babe, but overall Legion is considered to be the highest level of summer ball in NH. It all depends on the quality of the Legion program and the high school program of that particular town. That is perhaps the biggest factor!

Well here in Nashua we have 3 senior Babe ruth teams and one Legion team I believe. We have 3 schools filling those 4 teams (North, South & BG). That is why I was unsure. He will have one more year of 13-15 Babe Ruth next year after his freshman year. It will be the spring of 2011 that we will have to choose between Sr Babe ruth and Legion. I'll have to see where the top talent from those schools is playing when the time comes I guess. Personally I'm leaning towards Legion as that seems to historically be the stronger competition.

I would like to see more kids staying and playing baseball for there hometown teams. instead of leaving and playing for travel teams.I think to much money is spent by alot of these parents thinking there kids are going to be div.1 players.It really hurts local babe ruth leagues and legion teams.I am all for trying to keep young players playing together on the same team over the years together. instead of playing on all these different travel teams. It would help each local team . high school and legion team.My son got noticed from legion baseball and always played for local town teams.

bbrown

i agree, but i do wish your son had played travel.....maybe then we could have won a few more games. is he playing in sanford again?

20dad yes he is playing for sanford this summer. they are in newport R.I.tonight. lot of rain outs this summer. I am also host family for two other players on the team . I really enjoy going to the games great baseball.

Unless you live in a larger town, the hometown option for BR, SBR, and Legion may not be an option, so going out of town for travel ball may be your only option. Beyond that if your smaller town is part of a larger town's legion program - my experience is that the legion team is an extension of the HS team and play time is dictated by what the coaches knew of a player from their HS season. Also, unless the small town player is "special", generally the large town player will get preference.

Personally - playing as many games as possible is the answer even as early as U11/U12. I'd also like to see more 11/12 programs move to 70' basepaths - playing 60' closed bases for 4 years retards growth. The hurdle at this age is making the cost reasonable and finding enough games. I know it's possible to get 50-60 games from Apr -> Jul - you just have to work at it...

For those U13-U15 AAU programs - figure out a way to allow players to also be on their local BR teams. We lose 10 players from our U12 All Star team every year because they are on AAU programs that forbid them to play BR. In a small town, that's the kiss of death. Those kids will have 2 school games per week and then 2-4 games on Sat/Sun. That means for Apr & May they have 4-6 games/week (42 innings) where unless they are the best player they're probably seeing only 1/2 to 2/3's the time. If those players could add 3 more BR games per week and play games outside of AAU in June/July, then they'd be getting more experience.

I believe without a doubt that the Campbell HS team is better because players there have a lot of options in the southern tier to play with and against better competition.

It seems that we are getting off topic here a little, I am from MA, alot of posters here seem to have some influence, I would suggest someone taking the time to create an invitational tourney like the old Brockton Invitational and the ongoing Lynn Invitational down here in MA. My son got great exposure in both for very little $$. Maybe do it somewhere in Nashua/ Manchester, If you build it they (Coaches) will come. (Sorry about the poor analogy).

Polemecist, I discussed it with a league official and another GSBA board member last night and the GSBA is in the planning stages of such a tournament in 2010. I think it is a great idea, that we are taking directly from you, if you have any other suggestions please email them to info@nhbaseball.org. The two guys I talked to and myself think your idea is great, and with the Showcase League we have some very good contacts and more importantly our contacts have great contacts, if we get this off the ground I think it will have a big impact on NH baseball players. Thank you.