Life As An Old-Time Scout

Great article - thanks for the link!

Krak, that was such an interesting article! Thanks!

Julie

Neat article. It's interesting to read that one scout has only signed 27 players. To me, that's a testament to how difficult it is to make the bigs.

Can you imagine the stories these guys have? We got just a teeny-tiney little taste of it from the article and I was facinated.
There needs to be a book,...and a documentary!!!!
I'd be first in line for both.
I'd love to see & know about their life of baseball through their eyes. How incredibly interesting that would be.
Their lives, their stories, need to be officially documented,....they really do.

I wholeheartedly agree with shortstop mom about a movie or documentary. I had the pleasure this past summer of meeting an older baseball lifer/scout at a showcase wooden bat tournament at Texas Lutheran. I was sitting directly behind home plate when this older gentleman with a Stalker and stopwatch came and pulled up a lawn chair beside me. Since I had my own radar gun we compared speed while the pitcher warmed up. His name was Buzzy Keller with the Texas Rangers and he talked as he watched and wrote. I could have listened for hours as he told stories about being in the Cubs organization, managing in the minors for KC, and talking hitting with Barry Bonds. Coincdentally, he said he was there to watch a couple of guys on our team, the starting pitcher and the centerfielder who was supposed to be very fast. I didn't say anything about any of the players specifically until about the third inning when he said kind of offhandedly that he got the centerfielder in 3.74 home to first. Then he commented that he needed to take two more steps on his leadoff at second. At that point I told him I would be sure to tell him since he's my son. He laughed and went right into a story about working with Bonds on his leadoffs when they were both with the Pirates. I never had so much fun listening and watching. After the game, he invited both my son and the starting pitcher to the Area Code games tryouts in Brenham. What a thrill! I would love to just ride around with anyone of these guys for a scouting trip just to watch them work and learn. The skill it takes to project a young highschool or select player can never be replaced by a computer.

The guys who did the SHOWCASE video, or the ones who did the documentary on The Cape League should consider this their next project....before it's too late. I think I'll e-mail them.

As a Film Studies/Screenwriting major in college, my first reaction when I read the article was SOMEBODY FILM IT! I think the documentary format would be excellent, although I'd say Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duval would be good as central characters were it to be a 'Hollywood' film.

Any producers out there? I'll write. I'm dead serious. Worked in LA as a writer of scripts and screenplays before my oldest was born and we got the heck out of there.