Juco Baseball

[GTRH8R]

Mine played at Ranger last year. He blew his arm trying out for Texas State. He’s now home after Tommy John surgery. This made his 3rd surgery (broken wrist &Torn shoulder). Kids had more injuries playing baseball then he ever did in football. This made his 3rd surgery. I'd love to see him back playing but i can see his interest changing.

My daughter had a friend that had the same kind of issues. She tore her labrum and came back for her senior year of high school. Gets an offer to play at Boston University (smart kid too) goes up and rips up her bicep needing surgery to fix. She retired. She wouldn't be functional until her junior year and would be playing to her abilities until her senior year. That's a hard road to come back from when your program is getting stocked with D1 talent every year.

She is a talented kid, it just wasn't meant to be. I hate to see a playing career end because of injuries...

[tradtiger]

Good thing baseball's not a "contact" sport, huh?

[tradtiger]

My son is a freshman catcher at Temple Junior College. He's worked his way in the lineup a few times. Juco ball is very competitive, and fun to watch. There are some great players in Texas juco ball. If your son has aspirations of playing college ball, go watch a D1 juco game together, and keep an open mind. It's definitely not what most people think it is, (in a good way).

Temple is good. We just played y'all a week ago. In fact, the last clip on Eric's highlight video was a Temple kid. In that particular game, we were comfortably ahead when Eric threw a 7-pitch, no-hit inning. But right afterward your guys rallied big-time (against a different pitcher), and we finally ended up holding you off 8-7.

As far as D1 JUCO, I really didn't know much about it until talking with our coaches at Hill Country. Thing about it is that, the quality of competition is right up there; the main difference is you're playing instead of waiting for your turn at a four year school.

[Abcdj]

Tell Coach Pudge that Big Dave from up at Paris said hello next game. I coached football at Navarro for 8 years.
Good luck with conference coming up!

[tradtiger]

Tell Coach Pudge that Big Dave from up at Paris said hello next game. I coached football at Navarro for 8 years.
Good luck with conference coming up!

Will do, Coach! Thanks.

[Abcdj]

Will do, Coach! Thanks.

I hunt with Skip Johnson who was the head beisbol coach there for a long time and Chris Davis that plays for Baltimore and played for Skip at Navarro. Skip said that Chris hit a ball on top of the mall there in right field at Corsicana. I always claimed BS on that one Take a look out there and see what you think about that legend next time your there.
Chris has hit a few big flies in his time though!

[tradtiger]

Just texted Eric, who said "yep, I've heard that story" on Chris Davis. That would be a pretty good poke, for sure. Gotta be at least 50 yards from the right field fence to the Atwoods store. Shortest part of fence is about 325, so guesstimate of 475 feet. Not out of the realm of possibility.

[tradtiger]

I hunt with Skip Johnson who was the head beisbol coach there for a long time and Chris Davis that plays for Baltimore and played for Skip at Navarro. Skip said that Chris hit a ball on top of the mall there in right field at Corsicana. I always claimed BS on that one Take a look out there and see what you think about that legend next time your there.
Chris has hit a few big flies in his time though!

The boy wouldn't go step it off, but agreed fence is about 50 yards from store, and fence is actually 330 in right field. Noted that the ball probably went "like 500 feet" because it hit in the middle of the roof. Said it "absolutely" happened.

[bk913]

The boy wouldn't go step it off, but agreed fence is about 50 yards from store, and fence is actually 330 in right field. Noted that the ball probably went "like 500 feet" because it hit in the middle of the roof. Said it "absolutely" happened.

When Chris Davis was in college they were still using those BESR bats that the ball jumps off of. While it's a monster shot, I could be convinced that he hit one 500 ft if they can hit em 480-490 with woodies.

[Burnadell]

Congrats to your son!

Is that Chris Davis y'all are talking about originally from Longview?

[eradicator]

Congrats to your son!

Is that Chris Davis y'all are talking about originally from Longview?

yes

[Abcdj]

The boy wouldn't go step it off, but agreed fence is about 50 yards from store, and fence is actually 330 in right field. Noted that the ball probably went "like 500 feet" because it hit in the middle of the roof. Said it "absolutely" happened.

Take your range finder next trip and zap it. I'll tell them both it was only 499 no matter what it is

[Abcdj]

yes

Can't remember if you were there then? I'm old and can't remember anything.

[tradtiger]

When Chris Davis was in college they were still using those BESR bats that the ball jumps off of. While it's a monster shot, I could be convinced that he hit one 500 ft if they can hit em 480-490 with woodies.

That occurred to me this morning, as well. The trampoline effect off of the old aluminum bats could easily be worth 30 or 40 feet extra, compared to wood or a BBCOR bat. And Davis can hit close to 500 with a wood bat, anyway. Add in a possible north breeze early in the season: very plausible.

As far as rangefinding, note I'm TRADtiger -- don't own a rangefinder, have to step it next chance I get.

And thanks, Burnadell!

[tradtiger]

Its been years (30+) since I played college baseball but I remember the JUCO teams we played in the fall and early spring had guys with enormous raw-talent. The Blinn, Texarkana, Ranger, Navarro, Paris and Panola JUCO teams we played had better talent than we did (Northwestern Louisiana).

Yeah, I've been impressed with the talent, as well. Probably shouldn't be a surprise, when you consider that former JUCO players include: Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Albert Pujols, Bryce Harper, Curt Schilling, John Lackey, Chris Davis, Jake Arrieta and tons more.

Recently, I was looking around for info on the internet about getting from JUCO to D1, and came across an article, where it said 4 players on the New Mexico JC team signed D1 commit letters this past fall; well, might be a couple of those guys on the highlight video above in the night game footage at UH's stadium.