Gabby

I believe we are in District 1: 1. Science Hill (I believe playing Bearden in Johnson City Monday) 2. David Crockett (I believe playing Faragut in Knoxville Monday)

I watched Science Hill the most, so I will talk mostly about them. My nominations: Daniel Norris--MVP, centerfield, pitcher Ben McKinney--leftfield, honorable mention as pitcher Jon Krebs--3b Nathaniel Patterson--honorable mention first base I thought Daniel Norris was the most dominate player in Big 9 toward the end of the year. I would nominate him for center field and pitcher and MVP. As an oufielder he was a good hitter, good fielder, got good jump in the outfield, had outstanding speed, good arm. Dominating as a pitcher. Norris carried Science Hill this year. Science Hill is always in the ball game when Norris pitches. If Norris is healthy, Science Hill will be the team to beat for the next two years. I thought Ben McKinney was a good outfielder. Started him at 3b (probably not a good idea). Strong hitter. He was hampered by arm problems, so hesitant to nominate him as a pitcher due lack of consistency. Other pitchers in the district were probably more reliable and consistent. Nat-Pat would get an honorable mention. I'm not sure his hitting was consistent enough for first team, although he played good defensively at first base. Of the others that I saw play, Krebs impressed me at third base. I didn't see enough games with the others to make a cogent choice.

Today??™s game has been cancelled New Tournament schedule: Thursday 4:00 Crockett vs Science Hill 6:00 East Vs South 8:00 Loser 4:00 vs Winner 6:00 Friday 5:30 Championship 8:00 If Necessary

He could play as a 14U in USSSA. Use high school dimensions. Only restriction is can't be 15 before May 1.

For whatever reason my computer kept printing stink when I specifically wrote "s u c k it up" I tried to correct it three times. The computer kept coming out with "stink it up." Someone my trying writing "s u c k it up" and see what it prints. I'm sorry if I offended anyone. Sometimes computers aren't that accurate. What I was saying was, a pitcher can't let the umpires affect him.

I meant stink it up. My fingers are too big for the key board. Sorry. For some reason I can spell "stink it up" meaning to become more mentally strong! I'll try one more time. You need to become mentally strong when things aren't going right. I don't know what happened to the computer.

Having pitched in high school and college, I learned that you must adjust to the umpire. Get use to it, the umpires are going to make bad calls, just as the coaches and players are going to make errors. Either by good hitting or good fielding, you've got to take the umpires out of the game. If the umpire is calling the pitch 12-18 inches outside, I'm going to live out there as a pitcher. If the umpire is tight, I'm going to pick up a lot of the plate. I found that you get more if you can show the umpire you can spot the ball. If you are wild and all over the place, you don't get much. Although Connell is talented, his emotions often get the better of him. You can't get on the umpire either verbally or expressively. I've seen Connell make faces when things aren't going right. When things aren't going right as a pitcher, you've got stink it up and make better pitches.

I might be biased since I do coach a travel team and my son has played on a travel team for four years, but I do seem to see better baseball in travel baseball. I've seen runner after runner make the third out at third. I've seen the second hitter bunt in the first inning after the lead off hitter got on base. I've seen outfielders throw to the wrong bases. I've seen pitchers left in way too long and some taken out way too soon. For years I heard about the politics in baseball, but I didn't believe it. As several have mentioned, I have recently seen some kids given opportunity after opportunity to succeed and others given no opportunities. I've seen potentially good players move to other districts. I've seen other talented players just quit and pursue something else. I've seen marginal players continually fail but continually left in the line up. These things don't make sense to me. If I were a school coach, I would want all the talented players I could get and work on fielding, hitting, and pitching situations. I would want a program that everyone was trying to get into rather than move away from. The advantage of travel ball is the limited number of players and the cost of playing. Most travel teams keep about 12 players on a roster, so kids get to play. Because of the cost, if the coach isn't adding value, the players will go somewhere else. Also, the higher cost of playing and attending games insure that the parents are going to get the kids to practice and to the games. Also, most players have some skills. They are probably in top 20% of players. They know how to throw, catch, and hit. As a coach, you spend your time tweaking their abilities and teaching them the little ins and outs of the game. By the way, if you want to see some good baseball, there is a 14U tournament this weekend at Domtar Field in Kingsport that will have a lot of talent from GA., East Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, etc.

I have also seen some good talent at the varsity level, but I thought that SH's freshmen pitching staff was stronger and deeper than many of the JV and other Freshman teams that I saw. I even think that the SH freshman pitching staff was stronger than the SH JV staff. Maybe this is daddy ball, but I tend to be a pretty honest judge of talent. Moreover, the SH freshmen pitched most of the JV games. I also thought that the Freshman pitched ok against Bearden's JV team, but Bearden's team was so much more fundamentally sound than SH. That is really discouraging! They fielded better and hit the ball better. Perhaps one reason that I haven't seen some of the better, younger pitchers is that many of them may be playing varsity. Having grown up in a large city with 4-AAAA high schools in the city surrounded by a relatively rural area, I know that players in county schools had more opportunities to play varsity sooner. Overall, I would like for the talent in the area to be high. That makes it more enjoyable for everyone.

It seems odd that Science Hill seems to have more pitching than everybody else. It seems like most teams have one good pitcher, but Sciene Hill has three or four. I would suspect that with the county schools, but not with Dobyns Bennett and Tennessee High. It may just be a cycle, but from what I have seen in the JV and freshman games, there seems to be very little strong pitching in the pipeline for teams other than Science Hill. Tennessee High has a left hander named Heath and a right hander named O'dell that look pretty good, and Boone and Crockett have some fair pitching but not a lot of depth. Although, Science Hill doesn't have a dominant junior or sophmore group of pitchers other than Daniel Norris, I believe it is going to be hard to get all the freshman pitchers enough work over the next few years. Three of the freshman are throwing in the mid to high seventies which means that they will probably be throwing in low to mid eighties next year. There are four other pitchers that throw well and would be an asset to most other teams in the area. More impressively, most of them throw strikes. On top of that, there is a rising eight grader coming through Indian Trail that looks pretty tough.

Congratulations to the Science Hill freshman team. They won the Big 9 Freshman Tournament defeating David Crockett 3-1. Andrew Sweeney went the distance for the win, and Cody Campbell had the big two-run home run in the second inning to give SH a 2-0 lead. Justin Snyder had an rbi double in the seventh inning to extend the lead to 3-1. Crockett had a couple of wasted opportunities. With the bases loaded and one out, Crockett was unable to score in the fourth inning. The freshman team was lead by a strong and deep pitching staff consisting of 4 often dominant and another 3 or 4 better than average hurlers. The team had a strong outfield led by Devaun Miller in center field. The infielders were average to above average either having good range and weak arms or limited range and good arms. The hitting was inconsistent. Fortunately, the pitching carried the hitting and fielding. Many of the freshman players, especially the pitchers, play substantial amounts of time on the SH JV. The JV team was eliminated Saturday by Tennessee High 16-12 in nine innings. Tennessee High deserved to win the game. SH JV must have made 8 fielding errors. Nevertheless, SH battled back from an 11-3 deficit in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game off of one of Tennesee High's better pitchers. Does anyone have a report on how the JV tournament finished?

I agree that the run should have not counted. The runner going to first is a force play. Any third out due to a force play negates the run. If the runner had reached first and then been tagged out for rounding the base, the run counts if runner going home scores before the tag. Regardless, umpires are human and are going to make mistakes. When I am coaching, I try not to point out to them when they have made the mistake. The higher object is to take bad calls out of the game by trying to make good plays and score enough runs.

One reason that Kingsport has dominated area baseball is Kingsport baseball infrastructure. Many of the school players have been brought up in traveling baseball. In Johnson City, most of the school players have been brought up in Little League and Babe Ruth where everyone has an opportunity to play. I've noticed that Knoxville probably has some of the best baseball teams in East Tennessee. Again, many of their players are playing traveling baseball. I like the idea that there is an organization that anyone can play, but there also needs to be an organization where the best players can go learn more than "see the ball, hit the ball." And I think Knoxville is leading in this area. The SH JV played at Bearden a couple of weekends ago. During a thunder storm, the players had to take shelter in the club house. Inside there was an indoor hitting cage. At SH, there is no such place to practice when the weather is cold or rainy.

What is the same old story? SH will be replacing 7 or 8 seniors with 1 rising senior. Josh Odem will be hard to replace both from his basketball skills as well leadership skills. The rest of the varsity will be made up of this year's freshmen and sophmores, all with very limited varsity experience. Unless some sophmores and freshmen grow several inches this year, SH will not be very tall.

I agree that SH should get better. McKinney's shoulder is bothering him, but it is getting better. I saw him pitch against Davey Crockett a couple of weeks ago and he was throwing a lot of breaking pitches and I wondered why. Now I know. McKinney should be back full steam at tournament time. That should stabilize their rotation. I watched Norris pitch last week, and he was struggling with his off speed stuff. I think he may be trying to light up the radar guns. He threw a couple high fast balls that were probably in the 90s, but he threw a lot of fast balls in the mid-80s. Good hitters can hit mid-80s. He would be better off throwing a little less hard and spot the ball better, especially the breaking stuff. Mid 80s with a mid 70s breaking pitch makes a lot of difference. Work on location now and slowly bring in the velocity. He's got two years to blossom and become a pitcher rather than a hard thrower. With command of one pitch, a pitcher can compete. With command of two pitches, he can win. With command of three pitches, he can dominate. Sharp is good and would be an ace at other schools, but he is no McKinney or Norris. Once past these three, the quality drops off dramatically. Several others can throw hard, but you don't know where they're going to throw. SH really needs to improve their defense. I think their outfield might be playing too far back. No outfielder likes to get burned. But statistically, many more balls fall in front of outfielders than go over their heads, especially at the high school level.

Another typical 2009 SH game. Pitching wasn't very sharp (I believe that all 13 runs were allowed by the starter) and three errors in first inning. Offense put up 9 runs. Unfortunately, DB put up 6 runs in first inning. In my opinion, the coaches left the starter in too long. One bright spot was that they finally took a chance on a relatively unknown pitcher. The relief pitcher did give up a hit that allowed two runs to score, but settled down and pitched scorelessly the rest of the game. Give DB the credit, they got the hits when they needed them. Many of them were barely over the infielder's heads but those count too. Just a few real blasts, but the blasts came at good times. SH pitchers are really struggling getting their breaking stuff over.

Last night's SH/TH game was interesting. First of all McKinney didn't start. Evidently, he felt some soreness in his shoulder, and SH elected not to use him. They started Mancuso, who actually did a pretty good job until he ran out of steam. His defense also let him down by making three errors. SH fought back and got the lead in the fourth, 6-4. It stayed that way until the top of seventh. Patterson was pitching and started over throwing and got wild. It looks to me that Mancuso and Patterson are each good for about 4 innings. TH got a hit to start the 7th. I think another batter walked. SH got two outs, and Patterson grooved a get-over-the-plate 3-1 pitch that the kid drilled for a double that plated the runners. In the 8th, Patterson walked the bases loaded and plucked a batter to allow the winning run. Boston King gave up ground ball between first and second to score the other two runs. The interesting part of the game was how long SH let Patterson go. In my opinion, he was really struggling. He couldn't get his breaking pitches over and he was over throwing his fast ball. When you walk a lot of batters, someone always come a long and hits a dinker that gets thrown around a couple of times. I'd rather see the opposing team hit a 580 ft. home run with nobody on, then a 30 ft. dribbler with the bases loaded that gets thrown down the right field line. SH had plenty of chances to break the game open, but they tried playing small ball and it backfired. SH had the bases loaded in the 5th and tried to squeeze. Evidently, Mancuso missed the signal (when I played, the batter always had to acknowledge he was squeezing) and the runner was a sitting duck. I think they must teach small ball in coaching clinics, because all the coaches in this area do it. When the season started, I thought SH was going to dominant with pitching and fielding. I thought their hitting might be their weak spot. It has been just the opposite. Their pitching and fielding has struggled, while their hitting has been strong. That's why, I think they are making a mistake playing small ball. If Mancuso had hit one in the gap, the score could have been 10-4 by the end of the inning. I still think that SH is going to win the conference, especially if they get a first round bye. As someone stated earlier, several of the top teams are about equal when their ace is pitching. SH happens to have more aces, if everyone is healthy.

I agree that it has been a sluggish season (probably due to the weather). I've seen more exciting Little League seasons. It seems like the best time to play baseball in East Tennessee is from August to October (generally warm and dry), and it seems like the best football weather (cool, crisp nights) is from March through May. It looks like the excitement is going to gear up in the conference tournaments. Although I'm pulling for Science Hill, they are susceptible to a first game lost unless they play one of the weaker teams. If they get a bye, then they are going be in the driver's seat if the other teams are forced to use their aces. There doesn't seem much wriggle room. You can,t save anything for the tomorrow this year in the tournament. You must win that first game and worry about the second game when it comes.

I agree that anyone who volunteers to coach should not be bashed. Little League and Babe Ruth are leagues for everyone to play. The disadvantage in these leagues is that coaches spend 80% of their time on the 20% that will never be able to play competitive baseball. And I do not have a problem with that. Somehow there should be an accomodation for the 20% of players that have a chance of playing well at the next level. And I don't know what the answer is to that. Traveling ball tries to accomodate these players, but some kids get left out due to the associated costs. High school should be the answer, but there seems to be a lot of politics associated with high school. I've seen a lot of untalented players promoted through school ball, while many talented players are not given the opportunities to show their skills. I've seen a lot of players that look great in practice, but can't compete against talented competition. And I've seen other players that don't look that impressive, but when the ocassion arises they can get the clutch hit, make the crucial play, or take the extra base. Probably the best answer is showcase camps. Again the money eliminates many, but at least you are paying an unbiased observer to look at the player.

I noticed that Daniel Boone is ranked higher than Science Hill in the state poll. Do most of you still think that Science Hill will be the team at the top at conference tournament time?

I agree in respect to I also wonder if the people around here know how to play baseball! I have seen several mistakes made by the coaches and players. Last night, the DB JV was behind SH 11-1. SH had a new pitcher in the seventh that had thrown 12 straight balls. The kid swung at the next pitch and grounded into a double play. The DB coach yelled at the kid for not knowing the signs, and looked at me and just shook his head.

I still think SH is stronger than most and the team to beat. I don't think Coach Edwards has done a very good job of utilizing his pitching. He has McKinney, Daniel Norris, Daniel Sharp, Mancuso, DelGaico, and Nat. Paterson. The first three are pretty good starters with the other three being good short relievers. He has about 4 or 5 other juniors that are a level below this first cut. For whatever reason, he has been starting with the three starters and bringing in the second cut of pitchers for relief. The second cut of pitchers seem to be getting blasted. I suppose that Edwards is trying to season some of the juniors. Unfortunately, they don't always get the job done. I think when the tournament comes, Edwards is going to stick with the upper tier of pitching. SH is going to lose 11 seniors next year, many in key positions. The sophmore class is weak in pitching (other than Daniel Norris who is a sophmore), hitting, and speed. They are pretty good defensively. The freshman team is stronger in pitching and hitting, but not as good defensively and don't have much speed. Several freshman are getting a lot of opportunities playing JV. So overall, I think Coach Edwards is playing this year with an eye toward next year, seeing which underclassmen are going to step up for next year. I imagine that he thinks that the objective is to peak in late April with McKinney, Norris, and Sharp doing most of the pitching.

If Vance is who I am thinking about, he pitched the first JV game against Science Hill. I believe my son played against hit last year. He throws a two seamer that tails away from right handers. He threw the ball hard, but he seemed to over throw. He walked several, and SH got a couple of timely home runs. SH led 8-3 in the top of seventh, and gave up 8 runs losing 11-8. But Vance was not very sharp.

I haven't drunk the Science Hill Kool Aid yet, and I am a Science Hill supporter with time and money since my son plays freshman ball. However, I'm not from this area and do not have a bias toward any team. I have heard all the hype about SH pitching, but SH has played in some high scoring games, Boone being the latest. Baseball is a funny game in that the best team doesn't always win. Sometimes, you run into a hot team. As the great philosopher, Yogi Berra, once said good pitching stops good hitting, and good hitting stops good pitching.

To say Science Hill is pitching rich is arguable. McKinney and Norris are definitely two of the best. Sharp hasn't convinced me yet. Mancuso and NatPat throw hard, but they seem to be throwers, not pitchers. DelGaico throws well, but is hittable. They have two other junior pitchers that also throw well but are hittable. If I'm coaching, I have a lot of confidence McKinney and Norris with Sharp as my backup. I don't know how long I could go with the others.