Stretchlon Fall Brawl Showcase Tournament

Who we all are.

Just to give everyone my input on why we are playing, who we are, and who some of the others are.

The Carolina Thunder formed last year as a 16U travel team. We are 17/18U this year. Our kids are from Pitt County to the coast and all of them play on their respective high school teams. Once the high school season is over most guys either play legion, babe ruth, or Central Carolina League (interscholastic). Most of that is over the first 2 weeks of July. That leaves from then until November for some more baseball (and great baseball weather too). Most guys play fall ball with their high schools but it does not amount to much. This year we played a total of 4 five inning games and 1 six inning game. There were over 20 on the roster and everyone played. That's about 1.5 at bats per game if you are lucky. So, to get some better competition going we formed the Thunder. We keep about 12 guys on the core roster but have about 10 - 15 others we can pull from. Normally we have one or two regulars out each game either going to a college workout, showcase, or just taking a break from baseball. We usually play 4 or 5 tournaments and then one bigger one in November. So far this year we played a double header against Edenton, a Nations Baseball 18U tournament in Rocky Mount (went 4 -0 and won), a 4-team showcase put on by Rich at Wesleyan (finished 2nd), will play this weekend, and then we will finish up Nov. 7-9 at the Ripken Complex in Myrtle Beach (18U showcase). Most of our guys are also going to the impact event Nov. 1/2 in Cary.

Last year we played a little more; going 21 - 4 on the season and finishing up with a 2nd place finish at a 16u wood bat showcase in Myrtle Beach. We actually played the Wilson team last year and went 1-1 against them. They got the best of us this year. It happens. They are a great group of guys. Like the coach. My only senior pitcher, Dan Oliver, went with them to Liberty a couple of weekends ago since we were not playing anywhere. Without this style of ball I would not have met the coach and Dan would have missed an opportunity to showcase his stuff at Liberty.

I have a mixture of guys (2009 - 2012). I took my younger guys (15U) and played at the Impact 15U world series this year. Only went 1-2 but we could not throw our best pitchers as their high school teams were in the playoffs. A few weeks later we took the same younger group to ECAP and went 5-0 at an event with some good teams; Carolina Blaze, Carolina Darkhorses, Sanford Buzz, and others.

In a nutshell we have a lot of guys who should get the opportunity to play college baseball. Hope to announce a couple of signings soon! We put them together and seek out the best competition we can find which is often hard to do. Seems like only the big dogs get invited to events such as those put on by Impact. We are not the Cubs, Canes, On Deck, or Dirtbags so we don't ever get the call. No offense to those guys; just stating the facts. I really appreciate what Stretchlon is doing in giving the "other guys" an opportunity to play against some good competition. Things have been 1st class so far. On the other hand I have several guys who are being recruited by D1 programs even though we only have 2 seniors on our core roster. We play hard and we play smart. We will take on any and all including the big dogs if ever given the chance. We don't play what some stereotype as swing for the fences showcase style baseball. We steal bases, bunt, and hit / run. We can go yard too though (7 different guys so far this year). We play to win but we also play to learn. (getting down off my soap box now).

I know several of the other teams in this event. Triple Crown Baseball is a off-shoot of Hurricane Baseball in Pitt County. Jim Pearce kept the same guys together for the last 5 years. There was a bit of a split last year and a few of the guys went with me to form the Thunder. Pearce has put a lot of time and effort into that organization and they (formally we) have several AAU state championships to show for it. If I had to guesstimate I'd say they own at least a 80% winning percentage since he started the team when those guys were 11 years old. They've done all the great youth travel stuff like Cooperstown, Myrtle Beach, Concord, and all. He's kind of like me now; just trying to play some ball against other good teams. Great coach....great organization.

JH Rose - no explanation needed even though some of their players play with other organizations like the Cubs.

Lake Monsters - just started last year. I believe they are trying to be in the same mold as teams like the Cubs and Dirtbags. Must be working as they keep getting invited to big events. The older monsters are at ECU this weekend. I've seen the rosters. Great players....up and coming organization.

Apex Senators - from what I know they have been around a while and used to own other teams at USSSA and AAU level. The Thunder smacked them pretty hard last year 12-1. We play them this weekend. I hope they don't remember us. We are missing several key guys.

Duplin County - Senior Legion team from Sampson and Duplin County I belive.

Bunn - high school team. They have a pitcher who throws hard and hits even harder. We won a hard fough 4-3 victory against them earlier this year. Great baseball game; had all the elements. Great pitching, a dinger from each team, a hit batter each team (coincidence?????), and a game winning seeing-eye grounder to score a guy from second in the top of the 7th. Almost forgot, our closer working out of a pickle in the bottom of the 7th. Double-play ended it.

Well, that's my long-winded intro. Hope it was OK for this board as I am new to it.

You can check us out at www.carolinathunderbaseball.net

 

Great job 07. You're doing right by these kids. There is a little pedigree involved in Showcase, Ignore it. Eventually cream rises to the top. I have to admit that while it can be frustrating at times, coaches usually find kids regardless of who they play for.

 

Have you ever attempted to sign-up for one of these events?

 

Followup regarding big events

Dawgswood.......yes. For example, Impact posted their schedule months ago. I emailed Andy Partin, Jason Mills, and Impact Baseball asking for an invite to some of their events; especially the ECU event this weekend. I never even received a response after multiple attempts on my part. The interesting thing is that some of Mills' guys have played and continue to play with the Thunder. A couple of them are now playing with the Dirtbags. My son was also listed as one of the top prospects at an Impact 14/15U workout in 2007 at East Chapel Hill. Between those things and the fact that I registered at their site I thought I would at least be a somewhat familiar name. I have been doing my homework though and hopefully I can put together a good schedule for next year through various means. Of course, as I said earlier, Stretchlon has done a great job with the events he has put together.

 

Thank you C-T for the outstanding information. This is the kind of info we love to read. Good luck in what you are doing. You certainly are doing it right and for the right reasons. I suspect that the concerns Andy may have is he gets quite a few applicants for his tournaments. He has been burned in the past by allowing teams that did not field competitive teams- or he will accept a team that played in his tournament the previous year and they disband and he had to scramble to find a team to fill in. As your team, much like the Lake Monsters, continues to have success and shows a consistency of fielding a competitive team each year, I'm sure Impact would love to have you.

But looking at it from his viewpoint, there are certain tournaments that he hosts that other teams demand quality opponents and Andy must field teams that have a history with him of playing top notch baseball. Just imagine how many teams have been developed over the past few years. It's probably safe to say it has tripled. It's not easy for him to keep up with all the new teams. I'm sure it helps, since AP reads this site, to continue to post information about your team and your team's successes. It can certainly get his attention.

And his far as Stretchy, he is amazing the opportunities that he creates for all teams. He is the Czar of the amateur baseball world in NC and we are fortunate to have him.

 

Welcome to the board...

... and just because it's the TBR way, I wanna play Devil's Advocate, before someone else does...lol

Looking at it from another angle, of the teams Impact had apply for this weekends tourney, why do you feel yours should have been let in as oppossed to the O's or anyone else who actually made it on the schedule?

Again, welcome to the board!

 

Impact Local Qualifier Tournament Perhaps

Hey....maybe AP will let my "unknown team" tournaments be a qualifier for his big time events. Only the champion would get invited to a future Impact event? This way teams would have to prove they can hit, field and score runs.

Of course I would have to charge Andy a finder's fee!!!

The only flaw I see in this format is that rather than invite the champion I would prefer to see the team with the best looking mom's get the invitation.

 

Devil's Advocate

Diesel...I always appreciate the devil's advocate point of view. My biggest "gripe" with the Impact issue was the lack of response one way or the other. I know those guys probably get flooded with emails. I know how it is. My day job is in IT and I get at least 100 emails a day.

I'm sure there are many, many deserving teams out there; many of which may or may not get left out. I guess I figured out of the dozen or so events posted we might have gotten invited to at least one. If someone would have emailed me back and said "sorry, but we have some stronger teams that are interested"; I would have been OK with that. My response would have been to say "keep us in mind for next time" and left it at that.

But as I said earlier, I appreciate and respect the other points of view.

 

Let me address the email situation with Andy Partin. I've known Andy for a long time and consider him a good friend. There is absolutely no reason for him to ignore my emails. But I have sent him many through the years and many are not responded to. I have to assume that he is flooded and there is not enough time in the day to answer them (even from his friends.)

What Andy really needs is a secretary....and allow Stretchy to select

 

Stretchlon vs Impact for the Heavyweight Title

Stretchy you may be on to something there. We can have a world series. The Imact Event will be the ALCS and your event will be the NLCS. The winners play a best of 3 series somewhere. With all the work you have put in I don't think your "unknown" teams will be unknown for long. I have to agree about the moms. The GLM factor is crucial when drafting players for rec leagues.

I wanted to do something similar in Pitt County for years but other parties wanted no part of it. Greenville plays Little League and Winterville plays Cal Ripken. When my son was 12 his all-star team (Winterville) was really strong ; won the district but we list out in the states. I believe the Greenville all-star team went pretty far that year. Our guys wanted to play Greenville very badly. I proposed a post-season charity tournament between all the youth baseball organizations in Pitt County; Greenville LL, Winterville, Southern Pitt, and Ayden-Farmville-Grifton. Never could get it going but it would have been huge.