Now in the midst of summer baseball, some obvious differences appear.
Weather: Missouri HS baseball begins games in the last week in March and concludes with the STATE finals during 1st week of June. Summer baseball occurs during months of June and July. One season has real concerns about pulling muscles due to cold while the other watches for heat problems. Without question, the players display far different skills in warmer weather. Maybe HS season should begin 1 or 2 weeks later?
Schedule: High School baseball schedules are nightmares. Cold, rain, proms, spring breaks, indoor practices, etc along with the maximum schedule of 16 games/3 tournaments makes the games very irregular. Many summer baseball teams play 6 days a week for 7 weeks and pile up 40-55 games schedules. This severe commitment demanded of the players does put them into a playing rhythm—much more likely to find their actual playing plateau. We wish that Missouri, like Illinois, would set aside 6 or 7 weeks of playing games and let each school determine the number of games that they want to play during that time frame.
Pitching/Hitting/Defense: Due to many reasons cited above, during high school season the pitching, hitting and defensive skills have a much wider range. Some are very sharp and others just don’t seem to find the groove. Some players practiced all winter and are ready for game #1. Others, due to other commitments, have barely prepared for the season. As summer approaches, all players have the HS season under their belts with all its practices and games and all (as a group) are much better prepared to play at their real “level” during the summer games.
Spirit: High school classmates, friends seem to display a higher level of camaraderie. The success of the team still seems to be the primary goal of most players. The summer leagues are being interpreted by many (especially parents) a breeding ground for baseball scholarships. For many families, this summer experience revolves around the individual performance. Unless it is a tournament or a rivalry, many games illicit little emotion. My suggestion would be for summer teams to play 4 or 5 days a week, make each game a bit more special.
What do you think ? I’d love to read your thoughts, email us back your ideas in a sentence or two.
june 21, 2005
