Teams Unite

Total agreement here. When is enough, enough?

I keep saying that american's favorite past time is becoming as exclusive as golf, tennis and gymnastics. I am not sure that the best players are able to play the game but the players who are most blessed to have parent who can afford to pay for their kids to play the game.

Amen brother! How bout scoreboards to boot? NOT!

The whole system is ridiculous. How much to play on a team, then travel and hotel and food costs?? How did scouts ever find talent before showcases and PG and scouting services?? I believe we have been buffaloed into believing that players will go un-noticed if we don't spend our life savings for the right team, the right showcase tourney, the right camp, the right coach, etc.
Bullcookies!!

If the kid can play he will be found. Don't like the cost? Don't go. We have options in this country and your option is to simply not go.

Easier said than done, sir. In to far at this point. Rant over-I just have more summer left than I have money, so a little frustration coming out.

I think what I am trying to say is that these tournaments have set a market price for their tournament. They have now added hotel bookings to the price. The scouts come there because players will be there. If the teams stop going then the scouts won't go either...the scouts go for players and not tournament directors.

I understand you-it's like a vicious merry-go-round, and the different orgs. are selling the exposure and the tournaments they go to. I just seems it has gotten out of hand. I don't like being told by the tournament that we have to pay 1000-1200 to enter their tournament and use their hotels so the hotels can gouge us as well.

Wasn't at this tournament and no one said but my guess is there were not scouts running all around this tournament. Certainly not the 16u games.

With games scattered all over the place where's a scout to go?

Txbball14 If you don't like it don't go, that's the easy way out.

I don't think an organization should be able to dictate where you stay, didn't use to be that way. So you are going to be ok when in a year or two they make deals with restaurants and tell you where to eat and where to buy gas so they make a spiff off of you. If Texas teams stop feeding the out of state tournaments and start staying home and play things would change. You would also have a more concentrated area for those scouts and coaches to visit.

Scouts and college coaches will come to the big tournaments where they know D1 kids and propects are but for 95% of the teams that travel believing that they are going to get noticed is crazy! Most of the teams that travel don't even have a D1 or D2 kid on their roster. Unless you're the top two or three level teams with a well run summer organization the scouts and coaches are not sitting in the bleachers out in Guthrie, Ok hoping they find someone thats not already on the radar. Scouts know where the prospects are and they are NOT at a majority of the tournamnets that promote that scouts and coaches will be there.

I feel for the families that can't travel because they are paying $125.00 a night for a room when they could book there own room for $75.00 and now afford the gas to get there.

Let's just call the majority of the tournaments what they are "Baseball Vacations" and lose the hype of the term showcase.

Is it even legal for a organization to mandate where you must stay or you can't play in there tournament?

This is not my first summer rodeo but after many years it is my last. We need tournaments, it's fun to travel with your team. But when a hotel mgr in Ark and Ok confirm what I had thought and tell me they had to raise their rates so they could commission the tournament organizer $10.00 a room I decided to voice my opinion. It is what it is until people change it!

What was the tournament? Name it and maybe teams will not go next year.

Sounds like I'm in the wrong business.

If you want to do what's best for the kids and families, we need to get the Tigers, Dbat, Patriots, Frozen Ropes, Heat, Ft Worth Cats, etc.. to hook up with UTA, TCU, LaGrave, and Air Hog, and get it on.

The clubs could charge more and still save the families thousands of dollars. Quality programs from around the country would travel to Dallas to play here. College Coaches and scouts would be at those games, I promise you.

We had Texas, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Houston at a 7:00 Friday Night at South Grand Prairie two weeks ago. We didn't have that at any single game at East Cobb this year. I would much rather play here as a coach.

It is a positive experience for the boys to get to play at some of those venues, but for 1 or 2 games and 50 teams, come on.

Can the respective GM's and coaches set their egos aside and work together to make it a successful venture?...just askin

quote:

Can the respective GM's and coaches set their egos aside to make it work together to make it a successful venture?...just askin

you know the answer to that

quote:

Originally posted by monkeyboy:
Can the respective GM's and coaches set their egos aside to make it work together to make it a successful venture?...just askin

No they can't or should I say no they won't.

quote:

Originally posted by Vanlandingham:
If you want to do what's best for the kids and families, we need to get the Tigers, Dbat, Patriots, Frozen Ropes, Heat, Ft Worth Cats, etc.. to hook up with UTA, TCU, LaGrave, and Air Hog, and get it on.

The clubs could charge more and still save the families thousands of dollars. Quality programs from around the country would travel to Dallas to play here. College Coaches and scouts would be at those games, I promise you.

We had Texas, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Houston at a 7:00 Friday Night at South Grand Prairie two weeks ago. We didn't have that at any single game at East Cobb this year. I would much rather play here as a coach.

It is a positive experience for the boys to get to play at some of those venues, but for 1 or 2 games and 50 teams, come on.

Agree with you 100%, Lynn.

quote:

Originally posted by Vanlandingham:


We had Texas, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Houston at a 7:00 Friday Night at South Grand Prairie two weeks ago. We didn't have that at any single game at East Cobb this year. I would much rather play here as a coach.

Your catching on.

If they truly cared about the kids and their families, they could. This will get me flamed, but I don't care.

Which organization will be the one that says "no, we won't do this any more!" It is going to take someone like Tigers, Dbat or Patriots in my opinion to stop it.

There is more consideration for it than you think. Don't go blasting anyone based upon assumptions.

Where are you going to play this year, is a question that a majority of parents ask before they make a decision to place their son. Don't act like this all the doing of the select organizations. Diamond Kings, Past time etc... don't pay them a nickel to travel to those venues. Matter of fact, it takes away from the income of the coaches. They don't have deals with American Airlines or Courtyard by Marriot.

I think Lynn should lead the charge. 1 tournament in DFW. 1 nice venue. 10 quality teams. Cover the cost of the tournament, post it for all the community to see, and split it evenly between each player and family. Put on one good one, then add more. If you build it, THEY WILL COME.

Done!!!!

WOW!!!! My son is pretty much done with travel ball. This sounds like a revolution or should I say an evolution. A novel concept trying to make the game of baseball affordable so all kids can play. I love it guys. Good luck, I really hope you guys succeed.

The Leather Revolution.

I know I should probably just let this thing play out but I know most of you guys and have no problem sharing with you what I know through our tournaments and how we do things...

1) The first email of the year that we send out, every year, comes out in October/November for the following Summer regarding our entry fees, venues and the fact that we DO get a kick back from the hotels and we "require" teams to stay at our hotels. We don't tell you which hotel you must stay at, we book 6-12 different venues from $79-169 in some areas to give everyone the opportunity to choose where they want to stay, and if you still can't find one that is suitable let us know where you want to stay and we will find the property that fits your budget and needs. 99.9% of the time we can get lower rates than the parents can because of the quantity of rooms we book across the country, we work with the national heads of these hotels so they make sure of it. Hotels that offer you a lower rate are doing so against their contract with us and are essentially putting themselves at risk and violating the terms of our contracts because we mandate that our teams get the lowest rates available (with the exception of military personnel). We don't mandate what the rate is going to be, we fight for it to be less than what they initially offer, but we do mandate that nobody gets a lower rate...that's the point of us making them our host hotel in the first place. So our first email of the year confirms your suspicions on host hotels, though we do not hide it from anyone and in fact have had it posted on the front page of our website on numerous occasions. Nearly 100% of the actual tournament hosts, not just someone throwing an event together, require teams to stay in a host hotel.

2) Why do WE require the stay to play policy? We do so because our entry fees went up for the first time, by $25 per team, since 2007. Every year the facility fees go up, insurance goes up, baseball costs go up, travel goes up, etc...everything has increased every year and the way we combated those increases was by trying to do things the right way at our events so more teams would attend. When we started hosting in Stillwater in 2006 our feature facility cost us $3500 for 20 total games...that was $8000 in 2011. We are different than most hosts as we try to utilize as many college venues as possible...none coming at anything less than $125-150 per game to utilize and we use several across the country that are $500 a game take it or leave it...throw in umpires and insurance and 1/2 of your entry fee in to that event is gone on that single game. So back to the question...why...we wouldn't be here if we didn't. We provide baseballs at our events ($100,000+ per year), we pay for a site director at every site (another $25-50 a game), we don't collect gate fees, we don't keep a penny from concessions and we don't make much on tshirts and apparel (our hats cost $11 and some change and we sell them for $10 each, tshirts run close to $6 each at times and we sell them for $10...to be perfectly honest I still think it's cool that the kids and parents like to wear our apparel in the first place so I'm not trying to make a quick buck off of it).

3) So I'm sure I'm going to get an email from some other hosts ripping me for doing so but here is a real run down of what actual tournament numbers look like and where the money comes and goes for us in particular and since we are talking about the SW region here lets run with OK State and the costs associated:

-30 teams at $875 = $26,250
-OK State = $8000
-74 games @ $110 for umpires = $8140
-74 games @ an avg of 5.25 balls per game is about 32 dozen balls @ $35/dozen = $1120
-30 teams at $7 for insurance = $210
-Other HS facilities carry 40 of the 60 pool play games at $75/game (nobody is $50 anymore) = $3000
-Site directors at each of the other facilities @ an average of $100/day = $1200 (includes Sunday)
-Lead director (flight+rental car) = $500 minimum

Total Income = $26,250
Total Expenses = $22,170

Obviously this doesn't include any gas, food, trophies, but you get the point of where the big expenses come from.

Hopefully there is no rain because we cover the costs associated with the use of turface, etc. I guess the point of this little rant is to clarify where money is coming and going and how it is worked. Hotels do not account for much of this as the vast majority of the time teams are not staying 4 nights...they are now traveling in on Thursday's and leaving on Saturday's so there is only 2 nights worth of stays for roughly $250-300 total room nights for the weekend. The numbers in one of the previous posts are grossly over estimated in that sense. The issue with the numbers I have given above is this...if there aren't 30 teams the costs above stay relatively similar while the total income drops dramatically.

When it is all said and done this is an absolute full time job that 4 of us in our offices spend 350+ days a year working on. We don't get days off from May to August and more times than not 40 hours a week doesn't quite cut it and that isn't enough time to get everything done (June and July are probably closer to 105 hours a week). I guess from our view we have every right to push teams to specific hotels because when we don't we don't make it and these events wouldn't be worth it when considering the amount of time it takes to set everything up. It's not as easy as one may think (I used over 10,000 minutes on my cell phone in June...and it's not over yet, I get a minimum of 3 calls a night between the hours of 12AM and 2AM AND I answer them, and we have to deal with the teams that pull out at the last minute which makes us have to rework schedules which in return makes the remaining teams tell us we stink and we don't know what we are doing...there is no amount of money that is worth wearing those conversations week after week because of what one of the teams did to us at the last minute I can assure you that).

So...do I think there is a need for a reform...NO...should 18's travel all over the country to events looking for college coaches to recruit them...probably not unless you have some true kids that are D1 caliber talent...would it be cool for them to get one last chance to play on a top D1 facility before going to a smaller school/JC/etc or finishing their baseball careers altogether...YES. From my point of view a reform is a bit drastic and likely completely overkill as once you guys get in to running events and doing the inter workings of messing with all of this you will quickly realize that there is nothing fun about organizing these events BUT I do think a reform on expectations on what your personal goals from an event should be would be a good idea. We have scouts at our events but we can't tell them who to see or what fields to go to...work for your players a little bit and do your own recruiting...college coaches LOVE these tournaments and no it doesn't take away from what they make as many of them get the opportunity to recruit from home and the programs make money from the events and facility rentals on occasion. We could easily have 60 schools at a tournament with 50 teams in attendance and 25 of the teams could leave and say "we didn't see one scout at that event." Why does that happen? The coaches aren't doing the work behind the scenes to get the honest word out about their players and who should be interested in them (if you tell a coach you have a kid that is 86-88 on the mound and he is really 81-82 the rest of the kids on your team are going to suffer because the scouts and coaches WILL talk and tell each other that that coach over exaggerates the talent he has...you may have taken that kid from a real D2 prospect to a D3 or JC kid because of that). I would love to do the work for you guys to further promote the talent that comes to our events but there isn't enough time in the day and we, quite frankly, don't know what kind of talent you are going to have on your team from year to year. So instead of reforming the tournaments themselves simply reform the approach you are taking...some events are going to get your kids the games they need to stay in shape and where they should be, some events are well scouted events, and some events are too expensive and too far or in a region that your kids aren't going to get recruited at anyway unless you have someone that is 92-94 on the mound from the left side.

This is far too much time for me to put in to this but in closing we want to run good quality events because teams pay us hard earned money to do so...some of that money comes from the hotels so we don't have to raise our entry fees to $1000-1100 a pop...do we make money off of our events...absolutely, if we didn't we wouldn't be doing this. This IS in fact a business that was created to provide a benefit to the teams and put food on the table for about 30 staff members that work for us and close to 1000 other people that are affected by our events...in essence this is a much larger than just the tournament host we are talking about. All of this really comes down to someone's dissatisfaction on whether or not it is right to have a stay to play policy with regards to hotels...if you are going to stay in a hotel in the first place find one that you are okay with and use it, if you don't find one you like tell the tournament director what you want and your requirements and I bet they will do the work for you to get you exactly what you want, if you find a host hotel that is giving you a cheaper rate than what the tournament host lists the hotel is doing so illegally and can get in some serious trouble for doing so but don't blame that on the tournament host as most of us have the documentation in place that guarantees our people the lowest rates.

I know I've wrapped this up twice but before you guys jump on this band wagon...don't throw all event hosts in a pile and yell for reform. I know it seems like a very easy concept and a painless thing to do but it's not. Again, I'm sure this is going to get some phone calls my way from some directors but when it is all said and done you guys pay me to do what we do, likely to do what you guys would never want to do, and I love it about 99% of the time but I figured there is some knowledgable information above for everyone to chew on a bit.

Isn't the idea behind Premier Baseball, which includes many of the top clubs from TX, OK, KS, MO, is to pull together their clubs and sponser their own tournaments and showcases and not chase the public venues? The Banditos and Tigers had a similar group at one time.

Also, Sunbelt Classic Junior tournament pulls together top talent from TX and spend a week playing in McAllister, OK in front of a large number of D1 to JUCO scouts. The boys travel with the team and stay with host families. Parents stay wherever they want. The fee was a few hunder dollars to cover travel and tournament expenses. The DFW metroplex guys voluntarily exclude themselves for some reason.

Many of these select organizations also host great "by invitation only" weekend tournaments. There is no website, press release, trophy, all-tournament team, player evaluation or any other kind of public recognition that we parents crave. It is nothing but great baseball with tons of scouts. It is about being seen and not winning hardware.

Hmmm...

I don't know if it still takes place, but at the beginning of each summer circa 2005, there was a Metro Tourney involving the 'top' 17 & 18U teams.

In this area, that could be done every weekend or every other weekend leading up to the AABC.

With so many different choices now in select teams the field could be expanded and discretion used.

Some organizations or teams may get their feelings hurt not being a part of it, but it is much better than the tyranny many parents feel to get their son 'seen' by traveling.

Lynn, looks like you've got a great team. Is Deuce playing with you?

There are easily enough teams around this area to have some format of games every weekend. I'm not opposed to the travel I think it's good for the kids to play other teams and build some lasting friendships and memories. Personally I'm going to limit it to one out of town tournament per summer. How many times have you traveled over 4 hours and played a team that you've already played 10 times? Nothing more frusting then playing a team from the DFW area when your 4-8 hours away from home. Last tournament we had to play a game 90 miles from our appointed hotel and then come back another 70 miles to play the second game and that was still another 20 miles from the hotel. So I thought about it, with parents and players it took about 10 cars to get to the game. Let's say on average those cars get 18 mpg; approx miles per car for those two games in one day 180 miles = 9 gals of gas x 3.15 per gal. Hey since the tournament director can't get fields closer to each other it only cost our team approximatley an additional $284.00 to play two games that day. Yes I know if you don't like it don't do it. Dang, I guess I should have put pen to paper a long time ago, I could have saved enough money to send my kid to college!!

My experience the past few years with Pastime Tournaments has been great! Those guys do a great Job in being as efficient as possible. As far as games being so far away at some tournaments, some fields charge too much to use their facilities and rather than up the tourney cost you simply have to drive a little more.
As far as scouts go, the coach for the team your son is on should make phone calls or send emails to colleges. I called Baylor, and Houston about a lefty pitcher I have and both came to watch him. I did the same to some juncos for a couple other kids and those guys were there! And wouldn't you know it. 4 of them signed with those various schools. Crazy I know.
Lynn, congrats on your tourney win at Baylor. You have a great squad!

quote:

Originally posted by Vanlandingham:
If you want to do what's best for the kids and families, we need to get the Tigers, Dbat, Patriots, Frozen Ropes, Heat, Ft Worth Cats, etc.. to hook up with UTA, TCU, LaGrave, and Air Hog, and get it on.

The clubs could charge more and still save the families thousands of dollars. Quality programs from around the country would travel to Dallas to play here. College Coaches and scouts would be at those games, I promise you.

We had Texas, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Houston at a 7:00 Friday Night at South Grand Prairie two weeks ago. We didn't have that at any single game at East Cobb this year. I would much rather play here as a coach.

It is a positive experience for the boys to get to play at some of those venues, but for 1 or 2 games and 50 teams, come on.

The problem with this is it makes too much sense!
Parents shell out thousands and thousands of hard earned cash every summer to watch little Johnny play baseball. Having a "Texas League" would make it much easier.
to add- for the record, I don't have a dog in the fight

I do concur with DFW Twins, my experience with Pastime the last 2 years has been positive. The difference between now and when I had my 07's is that we would get 2 games at the host venue + the finals if you made it. Now, with the number of teams, it is virtually impossible to get that. There are so many teams that 1 game is the only option unless you make it to Sunday. We have been fortunate to make it to Sunday's, but many don't. Last year we went to Memphis for a Pastime event and played 3 games at the host venue. Went to Oklahoma State, had a tough pool and played only 1 game there.

Maybe we can get CNBC, to include some of these tournament directors, in their series "American Greed"

Why couldn't the multi-school districts that have several fields in their district(like LISD, Burleson, Plano)could make a ton hosting a tournament. Maybe not, with the cost of field rentals and such, but the booster clubs should consider it, in my opinion. Would that violate any UIL rules?

I'm not sure about UIL rules, but Colleyville Heritage did it a few years ago. They hosted a 2 day tournament for coach pitch. Parents & players ran the concessions, sold t-shirts, took ticket money, etc. They announced the players as they came up to bat and all of then thought being in the "big kid" dugouts was so cool. They charged a few hundred dollars a team (didn't "share" with USSSA!) and cleared money on the other aspects. I'm pretty sure costs were minimal so most was profit. Not a bad fundraiser idea...

As a "GM" of one of the smaller organizations, I too have come to the decision to stop sending our teams out of state for tournaments. This is the first summer in the last 6 years that I didnt take a team to the CM qualifier in Arizona. We have sent teams to OK State for tournaments the past several years as well, winning an 18u tourney last year, but I do not see us doing that again. I am considering doing an invitational type tournament next summer. Will the bigger organizations be willing to participate? Maybe. Maybe not. We played in a 18u invitational run by the Patriots this summer that turned out being very good for our kids. Played games at TCU and got some calls on several of our kids from college coaches following that weekend.

I don't know what the answer is, but we are one organization that is willing to do whatever it takes to lower the cost of playing ball. I don't know how our fees compare to others, and i don't really care, but we are constantly trying to help out. Our fees this summer were less than last summer.

Look, for the organizations, the cost of travel is a business expense, and largely funded by the parents. Are they really are of the overall total cost of all this??
We spend 2-3000 in organizational fees, then add on the cost of, lets say, six tournaments(600 per weekend minimum for hotel, food, gas, etc). We are spending 5-6000 bucks for our kids to play at this high level that everyone tells us our kid needs to be at. I have two of them doing it, and it is hard as heck to make it work. My wife and I are divorced, so we both struggle with the cost.

As for the kids, when do they get to be kids? We played every weekend from school out to mid-July with no time for practices. Game experience is good, but what are you doing to help them get better?

$2-$3 thousand in org fees for the Summer?

Here is my suggestion - take one Baseball Tournament vacation a summer it's fun for the kids and parents. Then you can easily play as many tournaments as you want in the DFW area. When you travel outside of DFW the chance of you playing a team from this area is pretty good so why not stay home and play them. Nothing sucks more than spending several hundreds of dollars to travel 4-5 hours and you play someone from the DFW area. How many times has this happened to you? Travel to let's say Houston, get a hotel , drive an additonal 10-90 miles to play a team that is from Dallas? I could have rented a field back home and played these guys! Why drive past Oklahoma City or Waco to play tournaments? Ask around, how many kids that travel all summer end up playing outside of a neighboring state? It all sounds good, "hey we are traveling to Alabama to play in a big tournament, lots of scouts and college coaches attending" Do you really want your sone playing D2,D3 or Juco and paying out of state tuition? A few do and thats great but the majority of kids that travel thinking they are going to get looked at aren't going to want to play D2,D3 or Juco 12 hours from home. If you are a solid D1 kid you will be found even if you never travel. If your kid is D1 they will find him, if he is D2 you may need to work a getting noticed a little more, D3 you need to call and attend a camp so they can see you. D1 Juco, they'll find you. D2 and D3 you may need to find them.

Pastime is the only tournament organzation that i would still use, they charge less than others, they update thier webiste so all can see whats going on if it rains and they still supply balls and there are no on site gate fees! Local tourneys put on by the Stix, Dbat, Tigers, Patriots or others around DFW you can't go wrong. If you want to be seen by scouts and college coaches play in these tournaments.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. This past summer my son who is sign to play D1 ball in the state of Texas was looking for a team to play for. I specifically told him that I was not going to pay for any team that did alot of travelling and that had a high organizational fee. He found a team that did one out of town trip which which was very close to the DFW area. After years of paying a ton of money and the fact that he was signed I refused to pay a king's ransom for him to play baseball. His team played all of the top team so he got his work in and at bats to prepare him for college. He and his team mates also had time to work a job, take a class or go on a much needed non baseball vacation.

I have been saying for years that the cost of youth sports yes most youth sports is taking the dream away from so many kids who wants to play the game. If a child is not BLESSED to have parents who can afford to pay the cost and have the job flexibility to support their kid than that kid's chances of competing are significantly reduced. On one hand be thankful that you fall in that shrinking class of middle america that can still make provide their kid this great opportunity to play baseball and more importantly teach their kid to pursue their dream.

As a native of a cold weather state I could never understand why folks in this part of Texas need to do any kind of travel except maybe a customary one trip a season to reward the kids for a job well done and to create bonding and lasting memories. This state with California, Florida and a few other southeastern states should very rarely have to travel. I really do hope that there is a way to lessen the cost for families so that all kids who want to play at a high level are given the opportunity. It is ashame that some of the opportunities are not always going to the most talented but to the kids with the most resources. Hope that folks such as Lynne and other well meaning folks can figure a way to cut some of the costs and start a grassroots movement for teams in the DFW area to do most of their playing locally and encourage the scouts to come to this area. There are just so many college opportunities in the state of Texas. I am done and I am moving on but my prayers are with you parents still in the game, no pun intended.

quote:

Originally posted by Dallas D'backs:
$2-$3 thousand in org fees for the Summer?

Yes. A little over two for summer, about 800 for fall. 3 thou for the year-for one kid, not including uniforms, travel, etc.
Most are in the same vicinity, true? I'm done bankrupting myself and living off pb&j to afford it.

Our fall and summer fees for 2012 total to $1850. This is less than last year. This includes uniforms. The only outside cost would be personal players items such as cleats, gloves, bats. Parents are responsible for travel, however, we don't do much of that.

We play BBI. We play all the "big" organizations. We play AABC qualifiers and state tourneys. This is the first summer we didn't put a team in the regional.

Patience!!! It's coming. I'm just waiting for Pick Johnson's approval.

I can tell you guys this. I won't be using Diamond King tournaments ever again! They have been really bad in each of the tournaments we have been in with them. Got a kid hurt today because he stepped in a pothole! Awful fields, awful organization. There was supposed to be a
Single elimination bracket tournament on Sunday and there is only a one and done. One of my teams was scheduled to play at 9am Saturday and then again at 8:15pm Saturday.

A buddy of mine that coaches a select team out of Ok City had a 9am game Thursday and they go there and the venue had no clue there were even games to be played there. The next game they had scheduled at 9am Friday, umpires never showed and the coaches had to call balls and strikes from behind the mound. The field in Navasota they used was 280 down the lines and 310 in center!

We will not be traveling near as much next year to try and save on cost! Not worth coming and spending all this money I play on recreational fields and then not get bracket play when it was advertised. Besides, most of the scouts come when I call them and tell them about a kid anyways.

Diappointed in Diamond King as well. We signed up for the showcase at A&M. A&M had their own camp going and knew nothing about a DK showcase. Then our fields got changed later that day because of field conditions.

Very poor showing for DK at A&M.

First time to go to a DK event and maybe the last. Also no way to speak witha DK official or event manager.

The guy that runs this organization is a joke. Initial email back in January from this organization. Stated, they will only be taking 20 teams in, both 16U and 18U. First 20 paid got a guaranteed game at A & M. He took 32 18U teams, and 30 16U teams.
SHOW ME THE MONEY,,, baby.

The director, also brings down his own umpires from Oklahoma, pays them only $45 per game, does not cover any of their expenses, for room, food or, gas.

When we asked him in late February, he stated that there was not near 20 registered yet, and, that we would receive a game at A & M. Sent in a check the next day, for TCU and A & M. We received our game at TCU. Not scheduled at A & M, and what's worse, the director would not respond to email or voicemail.

To many other good affiliations, that "do what they say". To be messing with this clown.

Dump diamond king and best baseball. Play and stay local.

we not only didnt play at a&m all our games were over a hour from collage station on 1a fields and city parks with short fences.
Im hoping the big orgs can come togeather and put on locals tounaments in DFW all summer.

We played all younger teams, which was a disappointment, but we did play at Texas A&M and some other nice fields, (although they were far from College Station such as Frankling High School and Fireman's Park in Brenham).

The tournament they put on in Waco had us at horrible venues and it is my understading Baylor was unaware there was a tournament until the last minute.

Our organization played in the OSU, OU, Rice and TCU tournaments. Don't think we will be back. No communication from director, arrogant when able to get ahold of him and the travel between games is crazy.

How about Diamond Kings, LOL. He's at it again. This time advertising OU Showcase. Only problem, he failed to tell any of the teams that registered, about the quite period. Now none of the teams, get to play at OU.

Just got of the phone with a local D-1 Coach. In reality, games could be played at OU, during the quite period.
Don't have a dog, in this hunt. Already been there

I did not read every post on this topic, but there is a difference in tourneys and agendas of each and every program.

We did try and get all the annually-strong programs into one league to where we could beat up on each other during the week - it was called BBI Premier. I can't remember what year we started it, but it consisted of DBAT, Tigers, Cats, Blackhawks, Patriots, Panthers, Lake Highlands Wildcats, etc. The only perennial power that wasn't in it was the Dallas Mustangs, they played in Lone Star. There were probably other programs but I can't remember. KCR might know he has a much better memory than I do.

It was a great league and we had TCU, LaGrave, UTA, etc for our fields. Every year we existed we had one team, if not two, make it to the Connie Mack World Series. It was great.

But as you would expect, things happened between program managers. Egos, backstabbing, etc. We all couldn't stay focused on the big picture.

And as far as tournaments and where you play etc... I can tell you that our 17u team plays in a Houston Invitational annually, where specific teams are invited by the college coaches themselves, and we play 5-6 games - and every game is at Rice, UH, and San Jacinto - but they are the coaches inviting us. Cost is only about $675

On the flip sidethere is a great 17u Showcase in event in La Grange, TX (if you know where that is) and they use Columbus HS and Schulenburg HS as well and we are in the middle of nowhere, TX and there is always 75ish college coaches there. We handed out 46 rosters at that event just this past summer.

Its not necessarily the venue by any means... scouts follow the programs, not the venue.

Just my opinion though.

A summer league of all quality programs would be great, just not going to happen IMHO

It can happen. I need those programs who are serious to contact me. I have been in touch with some of the major college coaches and they are for it as well. They are now running it through compliance to make sure that we do not compromise any thing with the NCAA. If your program is serious about this for next summer, please email me at LynnVanCBM@aol.com.

This has been discussed with 3 Big 12 Schools and another D1 School in Houston. As long as we can conform with the NCAA, I think it will happen.

The League deal is easy! There should be no excuses on this. Just make it happen. We played BBI with Richard last summer and it was perfect for us. I would like to even expand the league schedule and play more week night games.

Top programs, take notice of the last two posts. The demise of the mega clubs is near if it takes hold. Mark it down.

I love seeing this. Vanlandigham keep up the good work. It is my belief that if man can conceive it he can achieve it. Don't let the doubters and haters stop you from achieving this goal. The next step is to once again make baseball affordable for all kids. Oh by the way Vanlandigham tell your son that I am so very proud of him and wish him the best in all of his future endeavors.

Hey wait a minute.....I started this post how about a little credit here?? Just kidding, I no longer have a dog in the hunt but this is badly needed. Quality affordable baseball, what a novel idea!