Showball Camp

My son is signed up for Showball in August.  It was to be held in Long Island, but because of the 14-day quarantine requirement for people coming into NY from "hot spot" states, they've now moved it to the Cal Ripken Experience in Maryland.  HeadFirst has moved to an alternate site in Virginia.

Personally, if I were running one of those outfits, I would have gone even further south.  The redder the state, the less likely officials there will make it impossible for you do hold your event.

Showball uses metal bats or you can swing wood if you want. I would be wary of the schools putting pressure or just telling their coaches no travel. We are already seeing HA schools in New England cancel fall sports season, I don't see them sending their coaches on the road. Tough call to spend ~950$ plus travel for a video you can make at a home field. 

Son was signed up for the July 31-Aug 1 Showball event on LI. When it was cancelled, he moved to the Oct event in Bradenton. In addition to it being close to Jupiter (timeframe), were hoping that gave a long enough buffer. We will see....

@everypitch posted:

 Tough call to spend ~950$ plus travel for a video you can make at a home field. 

 

True.  Both Showball and HeadFirst are marketing themselves as offering something better than what players can do at home and what the college coaches have told them they want, but who knows.

@LuckyCat posted:

Personally, if I were running one of those outfits, I would have gone even further south.  The redder the state, the less likely officials there will make it impossible for you do hold your event.

I think you'd also have to consider that a lot (most?) Showball and Headfirst NY camp attendees come from the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and some might be wary (rightly or wrongly) about traveling to Florida or other current hot spots.  It's also really hot in July and August in southern states, of course.  

(And I say all of the above as a native North Carolinian who lives in that state, and who splits his time between NC and Florida.)

You can accomplish the exact same thing as them on your own. Invest in a pocket radar and stop watch, film your kids throw velos, exit velos, 60 times & home to first times.

If he’s a pitcher, then film his whole bullpen with the pocket radar.

This way, you’ll own two important instruments for future videos & you can dictate what videos you want to make public. If one day the numbers are bad, you can trash it and film the next.

If you don’t have money for a pocket radar, then;

1) you shouldn’t be going to a $1k event

2) borrow the pocket radar from somebody else, or go to a nearby facility that has the equipment needed & film there (worth the $50/hr)

Unless your kid is already communicating with 10+ coaches attending that event, then you definitely shouldn’t go. Also, I’d have questions about the D1 coaches watching from home. Who’s making sure that actually happens?

Not a fan of what they’re selling right now.

Thanks for commenting Josh. My rising Junior was a bit peeved for blowing off a local branch showcase for one of the bigger orgs. He is the newest member on his travel team and I told him why risk irritating the travel org and coaches so you can show off your skills to basically his peers and make the showcase org happy in the part of the state that is hours away from us and probably still has a blockbuster video store

@Josh Rudd (@JRudd_Scout) posted:

 

Not a fan of what they’re selling right now.

Just curious if you watched the Showball zoom meeting?  They described the live video from a professional camera crew + real-time Rhapsodo and Baseball Kinetics data, all provided by Your Stat Manager, that they would be live-streaming to D1 coaches and showed a short clip as an example.

I have no idea if this is what college coaches want, but if things keep heading the way they are, it may be all they are getting to make their decisions this summer and fall, especially D1s who can't come watch in person.

At this point and under the present circumstances, I'm not sure what more Showball could do.

@Josh Rudd (@JRudd_Scout) posted:

You can accomplish the exact same thing as them on your own. Invest in a pocket radar and stop watch, film your kids throw velos, exit velos, 60 times & home to first times.

If he’s a pitcher, then film his whole bullpen with the pocket radar.

This way, you’ll own two important instruments for future videos & you can dictate what videos you want to make public. If one day the numbers are bad, you can trash it and film the next.

If you don’t have money for a pocket radar, then;

1) you shouldn’t be going to a $1k event

2) borrow the pocket radar from somebody else, or go to a nearby facility that has the equipment needed & film there (worth the $50/hr)

 

Unless your kid is already communicating with 10+ coaches attending that event, then you definitely shouldn’t go. Also, I’d have questions about the D1 coaches watching from home. Who’s making sure that actually happens?

 

Not a fan of what they’re selling right now.

I can't imagine any college coach is giving any credence whatsoever to hand timed 60s and self measured/reported velos/tee exit.  Way too easy to manipulate all of them.  

Yeah, I was on the Showball ZOOM meeting and what they are doing looks very professional. We were just at Tri-Cities tournament down in Colonial Heights, VA, and it was the same sort of deal. 4 camera angles and it was like watching a college game on TV. Very well done and Tri-Cities isn't as big as Showball, so I'm pretty confident the Showball production value will be solid. Plus, I think Showball shows measurables on screen as they happen, which is cool. My son is going on August 6-7 at Ripken. Lucky for us that's much closer than Long Island...shame the Ivies won't be there in person but you have to make lemonade I guess.