February 1, 2010

For this post we are going to assume you are a high school player and you are going to play travel baseball.  As you choose your team and go to a tryout, listen carefully to what the coaches talk about.  One word you will hear a lot is exposure.  A lot of coaches will say you should play on our team because we will get you in front of more college coaches or pro scouts. Coaches know that players and parents love to hear that word so they throw it around like crazy. Beware of this because a lot of good summer programs play in the same tournaments.

Things to consider when choosing a team:

-Roster

-Cost

-What tournaments they play in

-The Coaching staff (credentials)

Some of the sanctioning bodies that get a lot of EXPOSURE:

-USSSA

-TripleCrown

-Pastime

There are obviously others as well but a lot of teams play in tournaments sanctioned by these bodies.  If you compare schedules and you see the teams you want to play for play in these tourneys then you can scratch the exposure angle. After you determine the schedules are the same or comparable, you can move onto the roster to determine your playing time and the coaching staff to see if you will like to play for them.  Choose wisely and be careful of the term EXPOSURE, it could be a costly mistake.

Sam Flamont played his college ball at Grand Rapids Community College and Western Michigan University. At Western Michigan Sam was rookie of the year his junior year, and offensive MVP, All-MAC first team and All Region his senior year. Sam was signed by the Detroit Tigers as a Free agent in 2002, and he played professionally for 4 years.  Now that his playing days are behind him Sam co-owns and operates In The Zone which is an indoor baseball facility in Traverse City, Michigan and runs his blog Baseball Around The Clock at www.samflamont.com.  Sam recently joined the coaching staff at Central Michigan University.