The Time Has Come !

I know I'm two days late but the official start date for high school baseball in the area is now upon us. The start date of March 7th has come and gone as has much of the snow. Hopefully, you have prepared yourself this winter and are now ready to tryout. The returning players have it easier as they know what to expect and exactly what the routine is going to be over the next few months. However, they are faced with college applications, finals and proms. The juniors have to deal with fighting for starting positions and the conversations that will follow about summer ball and ideas for college. For the underclassmen, the stress of trying to impress and the thought of "have I done enough to prepare"? "am i good enough" ?

The weather will hopefully take a turn for the better but I'm sure it will be a while before some of the fields dry up enough for outdoor practice to begin. There are, fortunately for many of you, a growing number of indoor facilities that can accommodate those that want extra work. Places like Frozen Ropes, Hardball Training Center, All Star Baseball Academy, Armonk Indoor Sports, East Fishkill Baseball, Extra Innings and some new ones in Somers and Mahopac that I don't have the names of. There are also some of the high schools that have artificial turf football/soccer fields that are already jammed up with spring sports. They are all fighting for a little "turf time", but it's a great opportunity for baseball coaches to get their players out side to long toss, field some fly balls, ground balls and work on base-running. I watched some of these exact drill at Iona College a few weeks back as they prepared to head south to open the season. What a great sight. Baseball practice with a back drop of 8-10 foot mounds of snow. This is also a great place for sons and dads and/or moms, brothers or sisters to jump out on the weekends to get some extra work

Speaking of the college teams, their season is well underway with most teams having played between 10-25 games already. For you high school players, think about it, the colleges have almost completed 3/4 of your season and it's the first week in March ! BTW, the 20 game rule is stupid. I'll update some information on local college guys later in the week.

Thanks for stopping by. If you have information on a college player drop me an email allbaseball247@gmail.com