The One Tip to Playing College Baseball

The One Tip to Playing College Baseball

The one advice I can give for making it to college, and signing for baseball, or any sport actually, is being not only competitive at the plate or on the mound, but competing in academics too. Athletics can be and edge to get into amazing colleges if the academics are there, but sports alone doesn't get you a college degree. For example, two students, one with a slightly higher SAT score than the other, will both apply to a top-notch school. The student with the lower SAT score plays baseball, and is a good player, that college is going to take the not-as-smart student just because he can swing a bat. However, being a baseball player isn't enough. A high school student can throw 97mph, but if he has a 2.2 GPA and another student, an average player, has a 4.8 GPA, the latter will sign first.

I am lucky enough to be well rounded and skilled in athletic, academics, and fine arts. This video, http://www.youtube.com/embed/Hu7HTKJ7BUk , shows a compilation of my greatest accomplishments, and my overall best accomplishment, which is being well rounded, and this is what has allowed me to receive recruitment letters from hundreds of colleges. I have been told by the scouts themselves that baseball is what they see when they watch me play, but my transcript is what bring them to watch in the first place.

Progressive Training vs. Correct Training

How many times have you heard the phase, you need to change to make it to the next level. When progressing up the ladder from rec. ball, to travel ball, and onto high school, collegiate and professional baseball, every player is taught, by their coaches, things that will make them better and "take them to the next level." This method of progressive training is a good way to keep up with the game, and stay playing baseball longer, but it will never get you ahead of the game without some amazing inate ability.

As my progression continued up the ladder in the heirarchy of baseball, I always stood out. I was always a great baseball player, but as you continue to play the game longer, so is everybody else. I have always managed to seperate myself from the rest of the great baseball players and get noticed for big opportunities by two reasons. The first of which, which everybody is told, is my work ethic and my hustle. When it has come down to getting offers from teams, I have been told that I was chosen for no other reason then no matter how good I am, I'm always at 110% energy. However the secong thing that sets me apart, and I have been told this by scouts, is the fact that I play the game with the maturity of someone who has been in the game longer. This is to say, I play the game, not with the techniques to be better than everyone else in my level of play, but I have always played the game with the same techniques as a professional.

As a child, I once had my coach tell me to learn to field a ball a certain way, when I noticed he himself fielded the ball differently. I asked him the reason for this and he said I don't need to field the ball like him yet, and that the reason for him doing that is because at his level of play, there is less time allowed to get the ball to first. It was from this day on I made the decision to learn the game at the highest level even if it was above my current skill level.

This maturity in the game can seperate baseball players from the rest. A scout who sees two baseball players with the same ethics and skill, the player who will be able to play at the next level without having to reset his whole game will be the on who is picked. For this reason, always make sure you try to reach the highes level of play no matter your compatition.

From Training to High School:

Baseball is like a tree, and every tree has its roots, and the roots of baseball are in a person's training as a youth. However, a tree wouldn't function with only roots, and likewise baseball training as a youth is not what determines success. It is a person's determination growing up to become good, how hard that person works, and being in the right place at the right time.

Each of these aspects are important and will be broken down throughout this blog separately.  Most people are told being the biggest and strongest is best, but most people don't know what it really takes to compete at elite levels. Being the most athletically gifted can allow for more opportunity in baseball, and it is a big factor in the youth baseball stage, but once you get to the higher levels, everyone is big, and no one is exceptionally gifted comparatively anymore. What takes a good baseball player and that makes him great are mental edges. Little tricks that players are taught can make a big difference in the end, by separating the smart player from the good player.

There are three aspects to succeeding in baseball. The first is you have to want it. As cliché as that sounds, it's true. Personally I know that always working hard will get you far anywhere in life. One prime example of this from my life, which I will always take as a lesson from too, is the fact that when I was 12 years old, I received a call from a baseball coach from Detroit. He was the manager for the top ranked team in the entire nation, and was offering an all expense-paid trip to Orlando to play for his team in what is considered the hardest baseball tournament in the nation. This coach had the option of any player in the whole nation, but he played me. What he said, that lesson I learned, is that I'm one of the best baseball players in the nation, but the reason he picked me was, not that I'm the absolute best, but that I work hard always, and I never have an attitude or ego. After that year, I got almost 10 different offers to the same tournament the following 2 years.

The second part is knowing the mental aspect of the game. Knowing what needs to be done at what times can benefit the player immensely. Also, knowing little tricks, or in the words of my personal coach, "cheating the rule book," will give you the edge athleticism in its self can't give. Knowing how to seem quicker without actually changing athletically, and how to play the books will get you to excel, which brings me into my third topic.

Knowing what you need to do is a key part of the game. There are times when you need to be unselfish to win a game, and that selflessness, though it may not show in the stats, will show to the coaches that see that the team is first with you and will carry you a long way. Also, by "playing the books", the difference between a sac bunt turned base hit, and a base hit line drive down the line, is nothing in the stats or scorebook. Bunt or hit, the stats show a hit on record.

Baseball is 80% mental and 20% physical as my old coach used to say. Knowing the little tricks it what gets you far in this game. As I've grown, I been slowly told these tips which I wish to share, and hopefully I will be able to help someone out there, through this blog, that is going through the same thing I went through.