East TX

A Gentleman and a Scholar!

We are all so proud of Clay but not near as proud as Skip, his Dad. That is a family that loves diamond sports.

Brook has a good team about every five years--and that was the fifth year last year. I think they would struggle against most all SE TX teams regardless of classification THIS year.

Donkey: I think you are wrong--any team that consistently beats WB is probably a better team be it--6A,5A,4A,& 3A.

To Baseballben: What you have basically said in all post is that WB is- elite- (irregardless of the performance level) BECAUSE THEY ARE 5A status. Anyone can benefit from playing someone that may beat you-whether they are schools of less enrollment or not!

To Bigcat: That was an incredible catch--ball/glove stuck in the fence! Incidentally, I like your answer on not pitching a promising younger-one that might just get hurt at this point in time. I see a lot of savvy in all the Blast coaching on safety issues. I also see good seasoned officials evidently breaking their ancient local rules by kicking bats out of base paths to keep from getting kids hurt unnecessarily. Kudos to these individuals that are more interested in safety for the long-pull! We need Coaches and Officials with youth safety in mind under all situations. Does anyone know where you can officially lodge a complaint about the metal cleats being initiated into use? I can envision girls with 30 stitches in the face from time-to-time--just because non-Safety Engineers set up a scenario that was stupid. Safety-by-bad-Design simply dictates that injury would take place a lot more often if metal can be used to cause sometimes major injury.

That was a great training tournament today in Orange. I hope these teams do well in the AFA Nationals in Beaumont; especially against the college red-shirted and Freshman age teams from around the country. I really enjoyed the game between the Crimson Blast Conner team against the Blast White Treadway team. They Pitched some of their best against each other in that game. Emalee Kennon against Miss Treadway--what a battle of good sportsmanship with Blast Conner winning 3-2. These two teams seemed to be playing very well in this particular matchup.

It is interesting in that another whole thread has been instituted to try to say that WB should not play good 3As and 4As even if they are competitive ball games. That is tragic to have to play 5As to make you feel good--in losing.....strange ???

The whole West Brook not wanting to play local teams just sounds like a serious EGO problem. With your reasoning fellow, it sounds like "if we are mauled by 5A Kingwood then we can handle it"--BUT "we just can't handle it if Nederland, BC, or Sulphur La. beats us...LOL

I studied the size of this thing and it might be better it Huffman, Barbers Hill and the other schools in the Baytown area get together in a like Tournament over there a little east of Houston. I am afraid that the Golden Triangle will pretty well fill up a big local Tournament. I am sure it would not be hard for the Baytown area to also put together an ace tournament. It could be a one game winners tournament between the winner on the Baytown area and the Golden Triangle area could take place as the grand finale. ;D

The magnitude of the number of teams just might entail using Lamar's stadium plus say Nederland, PNG and maybe another. IT COULD BE DONE!

To GingerSnap: Thanks for the reports! Please annouce anytime in the future when the Big Timers and/or Sun Devils are playing within driving distance of the Golden triangle. This is quality BB and should be followed.

To Orangeboy: A tournament of this nature with a large amount of quality teams is skewed to place all teams involved-- as playing teams of other classifications and districts at the first two or three bottom layers of the tiers of the tournament play. It would be quite unlikely that teams reaching the tops of the brackets would meet District foes. Remember even if that happened, most top-flight pitching is spent at that point and the games would not even be similar to when they meet later in district competitive action. I think a Thursday, Friday, Saturday tournament at Lamar stadium would get more people interested in deep SE TX area quality HS baseball. More fans following these teams would enhance the whole BB thrust for our area!

FROM THE ORIGINATOR OF THIS DISCUSSION--WOW, This ended up as not such a brief discussion of next years' team projections. I noticed that it was referred to that select team-Big Timers & Sun Devils etc: participation was spoken of as-- maybe opposed by HS Coaching. I for a fact know that Mr. Casey Bryant started taking his oldest son, Kim Bryant, over to Houston at a young age to play Catcher on a select team. As I remember all of the Bryant boys played not only in HS ball but on top quality Houston area teams in year round BB. I am sure glad however that most of the discussion dwelt on next years team prospects. On a personal note, I wish every one of the Cardinals were playing at least summer ball on a quality team under a logical Coach. The number of Pitchers in the rotations are large enough to keep the shoulders warmed up; without hurting anyones arms in the off season play.

I am having a lot of trouble following some of the reasoning. It would seem to me that if WB could easily end up in the middle of the pack in a tournament playing Silsbee., BC, Ned, Jasper, PNG, & LCM: HOW COULD THAT HURT THEM, EXCEPT THEIR 5A PRIDE? Yes, these teams are not Kingwood but if you can't beat them? what/how does the "Kingwood" references on here really matter? I would like to see a big tournament which also included Lake Charles-Barbe and Sulphur, LA. in the heap. If BROOK can't cut it in this type competition--then they need to know it as soon as possible!

Hi Phillip, I have checked out a lot of possible options and here is where I would camp out! LSU-Eunice over in Louisiana has one of the best kept secrets in all of baseball. It is a Junior College-- well know by all the major leagues, in fact--LSU-EUNICE placed 5 players on Major League teams in the last draft. Good place to start out.

Not sure about the--Scouts? I will say this, I will continue to go see these type teams play, it was really good BB. The crowd was great--between innings we all exchanged--clean funny jokes--it was an enjoyable outing. Is there a newspaper or other source that gives schedules of up coming games for Select BB & SS?

To Cards_Mom--In many years of following sports I have seen some politics such as: 1. Kids getting gross favoritism because parents are employed by the local school. 2. Kids that are flat better but younger sitting while weaker Seniors play. 3. Kids that are older not getting to play cause the Coach is building a team for two years away, the year prior to when he/she plans to trade jobs. 4. Kids getting discriminated against because the parent are either --rich or poor. 5. District Coaches trading their personal youth too fill the All-District positions, mostly in lower classification schools. I would hope if your child is the best and that he plays; but likewise, if there is a younger player that is markedly better, then that child should play in his place. It is tough being a parent is some circumstances, right?

Message for Phillip and others seeking scholarships. Over on the softball section of SETSsports, I have listed most all the schools in Texas and Louisiana that have baseball & softball programs. This is a starting point--if you enter Google Search on any of them you can get more pertinent details(and e-mail addresses etc:). Hope this is of help.

We went out to see Phillip Meeks pitch for the--Big Timers- and he did a good job! The tall boy that went from West Brook to pitch for Cathedral and has a scholarship to Lamar started the game. He was a little wild but throwing about 93 mph; so they put Phillip Meeks in after they had already scored 4 runs and there were NO OUTS. Meeks promptly got the three outs. He looked good today. Interestingly Matt Hicks(BC) was playing 3rd base having newly re-joined this Select team. There was 4 boys from Barbe Lake Charles, one from Wharton, two from Beaumont Central plus other assorted HSs. There was some good BB being played out at the Lamar diamond today. The team they were playing was a composite mostly from the Fort Bend area 5-As.

QUESTION--IS THE 3:00 PM GAME THIS EVENING(SUNDAY) BEING PLAYED AT LAMAR STADIUM?

I read this whole thing over one more time and it is really good. Young men who have graduated expressing thoughts on the upcoming team; a Mom hoping her son gets to play some; youth working hard off season to make the team; seasoned returnees envisioning various scenarios that would help the defense--this was a really good exchange of ideas. I would like to encourage Jasper, Orangefield, and the other players and fans of other 21-3A schools to start a thread just like this one; so that we can enjoy your ideas about your team for next season.

This is just great to preserve such history. When I was young I use to go and see the--Port Arthur Seahawks--play at the corner of Gulfway & Stadium Road(Presently Covenant Presbyterian Church now resides at this location). My favorite player was a big lefty Pitcher named Bill Creech. I think this team inspired a lot of us little boys to later play HS baseball around the area. Maybe a mural could also be painted to depict this era in Port Arthur?

Phillip, Are you having any bits?

I would like to compliment all the young men who have participated in this "what if" discussion. You all seem to have a good handle on the dynamics of baseball and see the different efficiency levels under different conditions: especially according to who is on the mound. Intelligence is an important factor in baseball strategy and you guys seem to have a good serving of diamond savvy.