Virginia Public/Private Baseball Tournament

I've always thought it would be cool to have an early season tournament that would include two of the very best A, AA, AAA, and private schools. I guess you could have a group of "experts" decide who they think should be the top teams going into each year in each classification, and have them come together for a tournament.

Maybe have two pools, round robin within each pool, and then have a single game with the best team from pool 1 playing the best from pool 2, etc, meaning four games for each team. It would be great if you could have in a central location (my vote is for Richmond, so it'd be convenient for me) but have the teams represent a sampling of all areas of the state.

I don't know about the other teams but given the extraordinary expense of the James River trip to Anaheim, I'm hoping they look for something more conservative in the future. We had a great time, but spending 30k to play 4 high school games to me is just ridiculous. (And that doesn't include player meal money or parent travel expenses.)

I'm also very thankful that we got out there and back before this debacle in the airline industry hit. Yikes! Next year, I hope if they go anywhere, they keep it on the east coast and take a charter bus. In any event, I doubt JR will be a candidate to return to the National Classic next year.

One problem we had in the Dominion District last year is that the district swelled to 9 teams when George Wythe got forced to play a varsity schedule. That meant we had 16 district games, even though 4 were games we would happily have replaced if we could have (slaughter games against hapless city schools). The Wythe edict came down late and left JR with only 4 non-district game slots, 2 of which had already been filled. We couldn't even do a spring break tourney, so we hit the road to find two single games.

This year, Wythe was permitted to return to JV play (where they still get slaughtered) and Huguenot folded completely. The Huguenot thing happened very, very late, this time leaving the county teams in the Dominion with only 18 games on their schedules and nowhere to turn for 2 more games.

With all the rain, it's now getting hard even to find open dates for 2 more games. But if you would like to see anyone in particular play a Dominion team, have your coach get on the phone ASAP and who knows, maybe it could happen this year if they move quickly enough.

JR has 2 senior starters and a junior starter but only one week where we have 3 games between here and the playoffs. I would really like to see us book 2 more games so that the junior could get his due turns out there. Maybe Saturday games?

I'd love to see us play St. Chris, Paul VI, or St. John's this year, but really anyone who would be interested ought to call up Coach Schumacher at James River, or any coach at any Dominion District school. Just act fast, because the season will be over before you know it.

As for next year, anyone who wants to put together a tourney can always hit the phones and see how it goes. Also, there is already a tourney in Va. Beach every year (Beach Blast) that James River did in 2006 and it was very well run. A lot of the teams you're mentioning would, I'm sure, be welcome there if they move before the slots fill up.

I guess I assumed you know this, but in case you don't, the big obstruction is the VHSL rule limiting public schools to 20 regular season games. There just isn't a lot of flexibility outside of district play, and you absolutely cannot enter tournaments that might drag you into more games than you were counting on.

The 20 game maximum is far too few, in my opinion. Even if the max was 25 games, it wouldn't mean a ridiculous schedule in terms of games per week, assuming an average year with regards to rain. If nothing else, it would be nice to be able to schedule the normal 20 game schedule plus play in a tournament of some sort. Otherwise, as mentioned, teams have to pick between playing some local non-conference matchups or a tournament. Even 5 more games per year would allow teams to schedule both.

One problem with a state tournament is the differnce in the timiing of Spring break between the various counties and private schools.

No need to tip-toe around this...but many publics flat refuse to play the private schools, b/c of the perception of recruiting. In our area, several of the privates have been in essence black-balled from games of any sorts (scrimmages, 7 v 7 football, girls sports, etc) b/c of the imagine problem (real, or imagined).

Yes, the rule needs to be changed. 20 game max is ridiculous. This would certainly help with the idea of putting the best in VA baseball, whether public or private, against each other early in the season.