DECEMBER 10 UPDATE

COMMITMENTS

Elizabeth Smith, C,1st, Schaumburg IL Sluggers, to Grand Valley State

Kara Lynne Sell, OF, Phoenix Storm Gold, to St Louis University

Katie Norton, P, NJ Diamond Girls, to Ursinius College

IMPROVING EXPOSURE TOURNAMENTS

After SPY’s report on the discussions/debates at the NFCA convention on how to improve exposure tournaments, SPY has received many suggestions from travel ball coaches, and will publish an article next week on the subject.  Further ideas are welcome.  While the college coaches had some specific criticisms of particular tournaments, and want to see improvements in most, I did not get the impression that they were focused on identifying any particular existing tournament as THE exposure tournament which would ONLY feature games between unsigned seniors and juniors – an expressed goal.  They do recognize that tournaments have many purposes, including fund-raising but importantly serving as the vehicle through which Gold and 18A teams prepare their players for the coming season – and make judgments about player strengths and weaknesses. And, acutely aware that JO level ball is expanding, the college coaches realize that large tournaments are inevitable, while simultaneously arguing from some kind of rotation which ensures that more players are seen on the major fields.  The door is open, in my opinion, for a new tournament which would serve this single function. The coaches would of course continue to attend existing tournaments which obviously are also vital to the recruiting process.  But, if the relative numbers of coaches who watched practice games at Alicia Park on the Friday night of the recent Batbuster tournament, as opposed to those who watched the tryouts at Barber, are any indication, the college coaches prefer to see players in competition, rather than tryouts. Again, your suggestions are welcome and I will try to reflect as many concepts as possible.

SPY MAGAZINE

I am very grateful to the readers who informed that the hyperlink on the home page of the news service was not linking to the magazine.  I repaired the broken hyperlink last night and immediately got ten new subscriptions, thanks to an attentive readership.

PRO PLAYERS

John Conway of St Louis (welcome back to coaching, John) makes a valid point.  Those pro teams should look at the better DII and even DIII programs to fill out their rosters.  There are many quality players in those ranks, like Elizabeth Economon and others in the Midwest who play for schools like Southeast Missouri State and Southwestern Missouri , just to name two.  (PS: an oft-asked question, but Holly Hesse and I are not related.)

2004 SCHEDULE

SPY is compiling a schedule of Gold,18A and college tournaments, which we hope to publish in about a week.  We welcome any information: tournament name; age group, location, dates.

SPY can’t publish every tournament but we will try to have a representative group.  Teams can also post their tournaments on Longstreth’s site: longstreth.sports@longstreth.com.

CADAVERS ANYONE?

People down Miami way tell me that Stingrays pitcher Elizabeth “Liz” Byrne is good at her craft.  They also tell me Liz is a brilliant student totally dedicated to becoming a doctor.  Now, I hear that she spends weekends working as an assistant at University of Miami hospital where, among other things, she assists pathologists etc. in determining the cause of death, and other cadaver-related activity.  Admire your dedication, Liz.  Gator will miss Liz if her work impacts the summer schedule; he just lost Allie Sims to Marty Cooper’s Plantation team.

Had a bad experience as a teenager with a cadaver.  Bunch of pickers in an old Ford convertible ran through a stop sign down near Paoli , OK , and slid under a semi.  Local funeral home director’s son and I were in our teens, and I was enlisted to drive one of the ambulances.  Put this one migrant in the back and I headed for Oklahoma City ’s Mercy Hospital , like a bat out of hell.  Just as I crossed South Shields with the needle on the peg, the doctor in the back told me the man had died.  We wheeled him into the morgue, and he lay there on the gurney, while I witnessed the doc’s declaration.  Just as I looked back, the dead man’s left leg shot up into the air, and he peed. I had seen death before, but all of them were just that – dead. I yelled, something like “Judas Priest” and the doctors informed me about rigor mortis, bodies discharging fluids after death, etc.  Didn’t so much bother me that I had watched a man die, even though I was just 16, but I kept wondering if I had driven faster he might have lived.  The doctors said his injuries were fatal.

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