No Respect for Raleigh

Growing pitchers

is it true that there is no middle school baseball in Raleigh?

 

Region 3

IMO Region 3 was as "talented" as any region in the state games last year. And this was without two studs from the region that elected to miss the state games to participate in a national Perfect Game event. Region 3 lost to Region 5 (eventual runners-up) 1-0 in 10 innings last year in a game they could have easily won. I recall some interesting personnel moves in that game where several of the top players on Region 3 (Thompson, Dowdy, Connor, Goodwin) were actually sitting on the bench for the majority of that game. Be that as it may, there's no doubt the triangle area has a ton of excellent players. I know many people from the area that at least occassionally read TBR but choose not to post for whatever reason.

 

Middle school baseball

There is no officially sanctioned middle school baseball. There are club teams for middle schools; these must be funded by the parents, not the school, and all is coordinated "outside" the school. Since it is done this way, there are few schools that participate in middle school ball.

 

region 3 2008

While I can not speak in reguards to the politics etc. of the past relative to region 3 try-outs and roster selections,I can tell you this.The head coach this year is Mike Joyner from Smithfield-Selma h/s,I do not know whom the asst.coaches will be but I can tell you a little about Coach Joyner.
I have seen him operate within the politics of high school baseball that any and all coaches have to deal with at some point.Coach Joyner has taken some hard hits from time to time because he did what was right for the kids and the team and not necessarily what others,i.e. a parent or parents thought he should do.We have seen him put what he believes was his best 9 players on the field without reguard to whom their daddy was, freshman or senior, no matter how many threats for his job he heard about from a couple of very wealthy parents.I have seen and heard him cussed out (we call it cussing in johnston co.) by parents who did"nt like his line-up but I have never seen him buckle to the pressures of these kinds of politics.We are fortunate to have a principle who backs his coaches when they are doing right by the kids and does not let parents or politics influence him either.
Now I did not write this to toot Mike Joyners horn,he does"nt need nor want that.The reason I wrote was to say guys if you play high school baseball in region 3 and want to try-out for the team I would strongly urge you to attend the work-outs when the time comes.
While I would never say Joyner or anyone else for that matter are perfect and can"t make mistakes,I can say this.His region 3 roster will be filled with the 20 players that he believes are the best available to represent this region because of baseball ability,not popularity or politics.

 

I would love to be flooded with Raleigh posters, but I suspect they are on NCPreps. The baseball side of that site seems to be dominated by that area and the Greenville region.

Nothing wrong with that...each site has a different flavor, but I would love to hear from more of them; Garner, Cary, FV and all of the others. It's rich with players.

 

I didn't make it past this line.

I worked in Raleigh for 7 years, and not one year went by that I wasn't at HS baseball in the spring, covering Apex or Athens Drive, Leesville, Broughton...and so on.

Baseball isn't as high profile as football--why? I don't know. All I know is I covered it, and there were others that did as well.

PLEASE stop blaming media for not covering games. They are there (or were when I was in Raleigh).

 

Who else....

...is there to blame for "not covering games"? The coverage of preps sports in the triangle newspapers has declined for many years now. The Durham paper is pretty pathetic especially where baseball is concerned. In fact if a local team does something note worthy, you basically have to write it yourself and submit it via e-mail complete with picture. You may or may not get it in though. Not to many years ago there were write ups galore, pictures, standings, etc. Heck, the last two years they haven't even reported the All-conference teams, POY's or COY's. Pitiful really. I've always been jealous of the smaller communities that really support and promote their high schools teams with their crowd, newspaper and money. Roxboro had an entire publication this year on their football team with a dossier on each player, pictures, stats, etc. In fact, you could make a pretty good argument that these are the teams that show up year end and year out in the state championships. Towns like South Caldwell, Greenville Rose, East Rutherford, South Stokes. I bet you don't have to beg their newspapers to come cover a game and report who was elected POY. So yea, I'd say local media coverage is a big reason kids are proud, work hard and are successful on the field. Who else's fault is it?
Sorry for the rant, just struck a nerve.

 

Well since one of the earlier posters said he wanted to hear about Fuquay- Varina's team well all I can say about that team this year is that they will be very good. They will have 11 seniors led by Cameron Conner and Kevin Brandt. They will also have some good junior talent and a very talented sophmore. I believe they will be a top contender for the 4a state title

 

To post or not to post

I personally am not impressed with the postings on NCPreps. Seems to be rants and childish posts half the time. Besides they don't have Braves to keep us straight by slapping us on the wrist or banging our heads against the wall.


By the way I have always had high respect for Raleigh area teams and players. Those kids have been tough to beat in the past.

 

I'm not saying baseball isn't worthy of coverage--far from it.

Papers may not give it as much attention simply because of manpower. Not enough staff to go to games. Some papers will do a quick writeup if the results are called in, and the person giving the info has some facrts, stats, whatever.

It's a 2 way street.