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Post by russelledwards on Jul 22, 2014 14:28:51 GMT 10
I must admit that I did hear about the Nakamura camps for u/14's about a month ago. It did sound like that this was going to replace the U/14 championships. But I think that this proposal is still in it's formative stage. At present the ABL is nothing more than maybe a Div1+ game of baseball and needs a true shot in the arm to make drastic improvement. And as for the ABF, less said the better as their decision making at present and in the past doesn't seem to have baseball totally in their thoughts apart from how to raise more money out of the players and what further rorts they can scheme up for the future. As I understand it the Nakamura Camp has nothing to do with either Baseball Victoria or the decision to drop the Under 14 Championships. It is simply Australia's greatest ever RH Pitcher on the World Stage doing his best to put back into the game he loves. I would encourage every parent with a budding Pitcher in the Family to get involved. One would hope that Baseball Victoria will get right behind Michael in this endeavour. He has a wealth of knowledge that he seems willing to pass on. At a minimum, Baseball Victoria should be emailing every participant to let them know what Michael is offering. |
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Post by larry42 on Jul 22, 2014 16:21:34 GMT 10
I must admit that I did hear about the Nakamura camps for u/14's about a month ago. It did sound like that this was going to replace the U/14 championships. But I think that this proposal is still in it's formative stage. At present the ABL is nothing more than maybe a Div1+ game of baseball and needs a true shot in the arm to make drastic improvement. And as for the ABF, less said the better as their decision making at present and in the past doesn't seem to have baseball totally in their thoughts apart from how to raise more money out of the players and what further rorts they can scheme up for the future. As I understand it the Nakamura Camp has nothing to do with either Baseball Victoria or the decision to drop the Under 14 Championships. It is simply Australia's greatest ever RH Pitcher on the World Stage doing his best to put back into the game he loves. I would encourage every parent with a budding Pitcher in the Family to get involved. One would hope that Baseball Victoria will get right behind Michael in this endeavour. He has a wealth of knowledge that he seems willing to pass on. At a minimum, Baseball Victoria should be emailing every participant to let them know what Michael is offering. Its not a camp, but will be a selected team that will make up the K2 U14 Academy. They are trialling in August and the selected team will then train through to early next year where they most likely to play games against Sydney teams in Sydney. They are paying a fee to be a part of it so it does come under a private team aspect. I believe they have the go ahead by BV and ABF. I believe that something may be coming out soon from BV re the new alignment of junior age groups under the baseball pathways program. |
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smf
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Post by smf on Jul 22, 2014 19:20:27 GMT 10
Once the junior ages are realigned, may I suggest something? Make the age groups the same for both Summer AND Winter. That way, kids get to grow up playing ball with their teammates all through their junior careers, and not chop and change depending on the season in which they play.
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Post by eddie11 on Jul 26, 2014 14:53:09 GMT 10
Alot of disucssion about how we should be developing the tallent pool we have.
Is baseball in Vic growing at a junior level? how many new clubs in the past 5 or 10 years?
massive residential growth outside of the traditional baseball areas but what has been established to attract kids to our game, what setup and development assistance does BV provide?
how many clubs in Melbourne are setup to support junior baseball as their primary reason for existance?
Build and expand the base of the game, play more games, travel less, stay local.
More clubs, more players, umpires administrators and supports in out game.
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Post by wyatt33 on Jul 28, 2014 3:06:17 GMT 10
I live in ftg, but my kids live in Coldstream. I'm fascinated by the fact that the only club within cooee of there is Croydon, and they don't really offer summer bball. So my sons next best option is? I see a spot in the market for a team in Lilydale/chirnside park area to cater to an expanding yarra valley, but it all seems to hard to get a group together, and get support from local council. Just a comment on the state of things in my region.
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Post by russelledwards on Jun 24, 2015 16:40:52 GMT 10
Congratulations to Jason Bald from the one time Premier Baseball State, Victoria, on being selected in the Australian Under 12 Team. A fantastic effort.
Poor old Victoria only managed to get one boy into a squad of 18 but no need for concern - I'm sure we will have another young man signed this year so everything is still going well.
You never know, with a bit of luck, we might even win another Under Age National Title at some time in the next 5 years.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2015 21:33:54 GMT 10
Ten kids from NSW, three from WA, two from Queensland, two from South Australia and just one from Victoria. Well done to all of the boys, but - as Russell points out - that is one hell of an imbalance in representation between the two largest states. Australian Baseball Alumni website is currently featuring a story on the Under 12 World Cup and will during Thursday or Friday be following up with an article on the current relative strengths of baseball administration and high performance outcomes north of our border. www.abpaa.com/#!exciting-times-as-our-youngsters-take-on/cvpg Aside from any other consideration (IE how come we win nothing these days?), Baseball NSW recently appointed a qualified, competent paid person to a serious ongoing role in Media, Marketing and Communication. Early reports say that he is doing a fantastic job. How is BV addressing those areas? Plumbing the depths, some might say..... |
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Post by larry42 on Jun 25, 2015 8:58:08 GMT 10
Congratulations to Jason Bald from the one time Premier Baseball State, Victoria, on being selected in the Australian Under 12 Team. A fantastic effort. Poor old Victoria only managed to get one boy into a squad of 18 but no need for concern - I'm sure we will have another young man signed this year so everything is still going well. You never know, with a bit of luck, we might even win another Under Age National Title at some time in the next 5 years. That's probably about right at the moment Russ. I was able to catch up with a few days at the recent LL National Champs in Lismore and there are some very good young boys running around in other states. Lots of kids with power arms too. The selection of the team is also interesting with a couple of the coaching staff on hand in Lismore but also input from State Associations as well. I'm not going to say anymore on this as it is a tough gig for this age group and I don't want to say the wrong thing. So bring on the new junior pathway for baseball in Victoria this coming summer season. And its a fairly significant change to whats taken place over the previous 20+ seasons. Charter Baseball is here and here to stay. This is dictated to the Associations by the powers that be at baseball Australia. Club v Club juniors games at Little League and Junior League is now a thing of the past. State League gone. This is replaced by the Charter Academies in which the best 24 from each age group (LL & JL) within the Charter will be selected to compete in their Academy Team (one training per week and a game against other Academies on the Saturday) This is meant to be a higher level of baseball and tuition for these kids. BV select the Academy Coaches through applications made to them, must be a Level 3 Coach to do so. Academy Coaches tied in to High Performance with BV. Academy players also to pay $420 to play 10 games leading in to the State Champs. Charter domestic baseball moved from Friday nights to Sunday morning. Interesting times ahead. My kids off to play cricket this year.. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2015 11:11:45 GMT 10
I saw online something about tryouts for the Melbourne Institute of Baseball for under 15's.
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Post by larry42 on Jun 25, 2015 12:15:43 GMT 10
I saw online something about tryouts for the Melbourne Institute of Baseball for under 15's. Check out the MIB website ior facebook page for details. Private Academy similarly set up as Nakamura's K2. |
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Post by russelledwards on Jun 25, 2015 14:21:20 GMT 10
Thanks for the update Larry. I'm in Canberra now so the headaches from beating my head against the Baseball Victoria Brick Wall have stopped at last.
The new format would seem to have merit but charging Parents another $420 for 10 games would seem to be taking "user pays" a bit far.
One step that might help Victoria's competitiveness at the National Level might be to change the Work hours of the BV High Performance and Participation Departments to 4-8 Mon to Frid and 9-4 Sat. Get them out of the Office and on to the Club Fields.
Someone said to me that there was a photo posted on Social Media of one of our Staff Members throwing BP to Minor Leagurers getting ready to return to the States - I refuse to believe that BV would be seeing that as part of their Staff's Duties. Probably just an urban myth.
If the BV Staff want to throw BP how about they do it for our developing kids.
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Post by russelledwards on Feb 5, 2016 11:09:02 GMT 10
Been a while since I was made persona non grata by Baseball Victoria so I thought I should post an update on the One Time Premier Baseball State just in case they are considering welcoming me back into the fold and I wouldn't want that (I think it was Groucho Marx who said it best - "I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member")
Our once great Baseball State has now won 2 national Championships out of all National Under Age Championships, Little League Championships, Junior League Championships and the Australian Baseball League (more than 30 events by my reckoning) conducted over the last 6 years.
Not to worry though - our high performance department's mandate is not about winning and the focus has to be on getting kids signed and getting kids to College.
With winning no longer a priority, I guess congratulations and maybe even pay rises are in order to all those involved, because if failing to win Championships is a KPI then Victoria is truly excelling.
Don't know why we keep score really.
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Post by lonewolf75 on Feb 8, 2016 6:23:34 GMT 10
So Rus, is there anyway we can see if the number of VIC kids signed has increased over the last six years?
I would have thought if our kids arent strong enough to win state titles, make All Star / Aus squads it would be harder to get them signed.
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Post by russelledwards on Feb 8, 2016 9:48:11 GMT 10
I suspect your rationale is correct. I aren't aware of the numbers of signings relative to other States but I would question whether any signings are as a result of work done by Baseball Victoria.
I don't think it is a coincidence, that the majority of kids signed come from Clubs with strong Junior Programs. When young men sign it is generally due to a number of Club Coaches devoting many, many hours to the player in question.
It "takes a village" to get a prospect signed but i can't for the life of me, see Baseball Victoria as a contributing part of that "village".
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Post by mc15 on Feb 8, 2016 13:24:55 GMT 10
This is the same conversation from June 2014 (first pages on this thread). Not sure what more we are going to accomplish without rehashing old ground.
Has there been any clearer direction from BA over this time?
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Post by russelledwards on Feb 8, 2016 13:54:17 GMT 10
My point is Mick, that to the best of my knowledge, nothing at Baseball Victoria has changed. Admittedly I am removed from the Vic Baseball community now, but if the complaints I received from Parents and Scouts at the Nationals are any indication, it is a case of same ole - same ole down there.
At what stage will our lack of success at Nationals lead to change? Perhaps the answer is never. Baseball Victoria commissioned a Report into the High Performance Department last year and the resultant Document can be viewed at
file:///C:/Users/RUSSELL/Downloads/HPR%20-%20BV%20Release.pdf
I sincerely hope they got it for free.
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Post by doubleplay on Feb 9, 2016 11:58:53 GMT 10
After a conversation with an Ex CEO, winning is not on the agenda, getting kids signed is, hence two teams in each catorgory offering up more pigeons for eagle scouts. To me it is just a money spinner to encourage 17 other kids to play second fiddle. I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that the kids that signed came out of the blue teams. The good kids will get signed even if there was only one team and success for the state may return with the emphasis being winning as well as getting signed if you are good enough and it doesn't take a high performance dept of one to get the kids signed. Grass roots coaching and natural ability got the kids good enough to 1. play state ball and 2. get signed. Yes we have smashed this around the park in 2014 but it will only finish when the state gets fair dinkum about winning.
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Post by mc15 on Feb 9, 2016 15:28:09 GMT 10
I'm not going to get into a tit for tat argument with any party on who is/isn't responsible for any individual names. The simple reason for that is that the success rate of players progressing through the system is a result of the collective efforts of everyone involved. This clearly starts in club land, progresses through regional rep teams, extends into elite development and finally from a local perspective into the junior national team environment. Claiming or blaming responsibility for one persons development equally means claiming or blaming for the lack of development for another. This approach just separates stake holders from each other and creates a wall blocking any form of cooperation. For an effective system to operate, all areas need to understand their strengths, roles and responsibilities and stick with them while working in a civil fashion with those who can complement the skill sets they don't have. There is no way that any local club can take on the role as a developer of elite talent in isolation just as an elite developer cannot take on the role of entry level developer. This is a classic case of the "Sum of the whole being greater than the parts" This might sound idealistic, but this is the backbone of any functional system. Perhaps this in itself the problem... Sit at the table and work out your differences. |
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Post by mc15 on Feb 29, 2016 6:01:22 GMT 10
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