Mwalls14

And besides even that...Smyrna might have 4 games, but only 2 are district games. Oakland plays 5 games this week. So does Overton. They had no problem playing Sunday.

Well I find it hard to believe that EVERY member of the varsity team had no interest in playing....in a scouted tournament. Again, this is high school baseball, not little league. You don't get to pick and choose when you want to play. Is that the attitude that's going to be carried to college? "Sorry coach, I need to rest up for next week". Again, just throw the JV team out there. I'll tell you one thing. The bench players at Smyrna would have played. The freshman would have played. It's just an excuse

I can see both opinions about the Smyrna issue. You can forfeit if you want to. But I think it sets a bad example for the kids to go by. Last time I checked, the students don't get to decide whether they play or not. They make a commitment to the program. And maybe that's the problem. I do understand the Coach being late. It happens. But again, you have a coach who's late and players who don't want to play. Who's in control of this program. By some of the replies, sounds like the parents. That's a big mistake. And if you're varsity team is that banged up, throw the JV team out there. They'll probably lose, but that won't reflect any more poorly on the program than backing out, and it's valuable experience for next year's varsity team. When you've got 40 players on a squad, you can find 15 who want to play. Everything else is just an excuse

Do you have any stats or anything to report from these two games?

any idea who pitched for Friendship in that Page game?

Riverdaleman, You bring up some good points. I'm guessing the intention of the new rules is to keep the kids from feeling forced to play a sport year round. I think the TSSAA is missing the point that the kids who are dedicated to a sport want to devote as much free time to improving their skills as possible. You said your kid may or may not be very talented, but I know that the first thing that separates the kids who make it from the ones who don't is drive and dedication, and that eventually trumps natural ability, as I'm sure you know. But for where I'm from in Clarksville, the whole year round concept is still relatively new, and I see them trying to get control of it before it gets out of hand. I graduated only 5 years ago, but we never had summer high school ball, tryouts during summer. We didn't have middle school ball then and travel teams were still pretty hard to come by. The amount of baseball these kids are getting to play now is incredible, and I only wish I would have had that opportunity. You all are right, how can we ever compete on a state level with states where the weather permits you to play year round. Now when we're running traveling teams we are having to squeeze 75 games into 75 days just for them to get the PT. Like I said before, I'm not a fan of the summer high school teams just because of the limit exposure the kids get, but if we're hiring guys as "coaches", it seems silly to put restrictions on which months they can do their job. Seems silly. I also don't care for the double standard that allows football to be an exception to this rule. I don't understand that one bit.

I loved playing in Cocoa. The facilities are pretty nice when it's not raining.

I've always had sort of a mixed opinion with regard to the high school summer teams. From the coaches' aspect, it's great. You can keep your team together, build the chemistry and develop for the high school season. It also allows you to control the bad habits that some kids develop from other programs. On the other hand, the high school programs have to be pretty limited in their traveling and games because since they're pretty much requiring you to play, the coach can't really then force each player to pay the 1000-1500 to cover traveling and tournament costs. You can let your booster club handle alot of that. What I don't like about the high school teams is that I think it really limits the opportunities these kids have to be seen by colleges. In that aspect, I think coaches are really doing a disservice to their kids. There are alot of lazy coaches who are happy making the rounds of the other in-town teams. You almost have to be a stud to have the leverage to tell the coach no. Because I coach a summer team, I'm not crazy about the summer teams, but I have seen that alot of them are starting to branch out and play in leagues and travel more, which is good.