You never know who is watching

very true

With the game full of ups and downs, some success and failure, the environment is a great place to gauge how one handles themselves. You can't really fake it?

Very true. We have had scouts come out of the stands after a game and one went right to the mound after my son pitched and gave him his card. He was a Tampa scout from NY state who drove 400 miles to watch the game. He then sat with me and talked for an hour,
One scout says he always judjes a pitcher by his bull pen getting ready to pitch in a game. He does that because the pitcher thinks no one is watching.

We found out youngster started getting tracked Freshman HS season since he was Varsity. We knew it then because the coach and AD told us, as the scouts did the following season.

They even came to basketball games to check on athleticism. I am sure there were some watching that we had no clue were there, but 3 years of 18u summer premier baseball, as many here know bring out many of the same folks(college coaches and MLB scouts) to many of the same events, so you get to know many of them.

It is amazing how long they have tracked the players when you don't event know some are watching. Similar stories, they had started to track as early as the freshman year of high school, and having traveled around the country to high visibility events, I am sure they have notes from various sources.

Besides watching from the stands and up the lines, scouts and coaches have been known to sit in their cars before and after the games to see how the players conduct themselves, some even have mentioned to me that they check things like Myspace and Facebook, to see what is being posted.

Favorite piece of advice to all...Everyday is an interview. Bring your A game and attitude EVERYDAY. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Oh so cliche, but soooo true. Example: Son was selected for Junior Olympics in Jupiter because an opposing coach he had impressed (with his attitude and work ethic)a couple of years earlier was helping out and directed some scouts to check him out and he happened to have a monumental game. Making that JO team put him on every college's and showcase A list. "They" say you have to be lucky to be successful in baseball, but you also make your own luck by giving it your all 24-7. You just never know who might be watching.

In HS one of my sons travel coach (an associate scout for the Cards) brother was Scouting director at teh time my son was in HS. He was at many games watching son play but in his senior year he told son he thought he should go to college first. He is no longer the scouting director but part of the organization and up at the cape son bumped into him. Not sure if this had anything to do with the draft, but just seems too coincidental to me.

SDBB told me the other night that he was at a game during the summer and both cardinal scouts sittng near him knew of son, another player's parent who posts here plays for a Cardinals scout team in Ohio and that manager knows of son. So I imagine, if you are on a teams radar all scouts from the team may be watching you.

That's not to mention all the scouts that college coaches have sent out to watch you play.

I think it is important to let your young players know that at anytime someone very important may be watching everything that you do and to make it a good habit during your HS or college years to always remember that.

Coaches also pass on lots of other information.

I was in Jupiter Fl several years ago, I got on the elevator with several college coaches and they were discussing a certain player who was known to do a great deal of drinking on the weekends.Some of the coaches found this information very interesting.

So a lot more than baseball is passed around by coaches.You never know whos watching on and off the field.