OT: Your Baseball Playing Days

[MacDice]

My playing career ended when I was diagnosed with cancer. By the time, I was healthy enough to resume baseball activities, I felt like my window of opportunity had closed and I walked away from the game something that I regret.

WAZOO- As a college coach, yes your junior year is important but it is not the end all if you struggle a little. I would recommend that as a hitter do all of your training and as much BP as you can with wood bats not with aluminum. If you can hit with wood then you can hit with anything. A lot of young hitters have flaws in their mechanics and approach that can be covered up with an aluminum bat but as you play against higher competition those flaws come out. Players also get worried that if they don’t early sign that they won’t end up getting an offer and they stress. The truth is sometimes it is better to wait. I have seen a lot of players sign in late June and end up in real good programs. The reason is grades, some players get cut or decided to leave programs and some programs lose players to the draft thus opening up scholarship money late. You also need to be realistic with yourself, I have seen players whose parents have spent more money sending their kids to showcases only to get a scholarship that was a fraction of what they spent going to said showcases. They would have been better off spending that money on their kids education. The last thing to also remember is the D-1 can be overrated. There are a lot of D-1 programs that are horrible and would lose constantly to a D-2, NAIA or JC team. Unlike other sports, you can still get a chance of playing pro baseball even if you are not at a D-1 team but at the end of the day your education and the degree you will earn is the most important thing.