During the offseason training clinic for 15-17u Gamers, I talked about the “90th percentile” rule. Simply put, to be extraordinary in something, you need to be in the 90th percentile (i.e. in the top 10%).

To be extraordinary is not easy — you need to be firing on all cylinders to achieve this level. This is true in sports, academics or whatever endeavor you choose. And, natural talent alone is rarely enough to keep you in the top 10% — there are a lot of talented people in the world.

The graphic below is a little scary — for every 1000 kids that start out playing youth baseball at 9u, only four will go on to play college baseball. It is important for Gamers to understand this graphic.

In 2010, we sent 23 players on to play college baseball — they were the exceptional ones that made through, representing 6000 kids playing 9u baseball in 2001.