– Total program fees

– Which team they will be on

– Who will coach them

– What the offseason practice schedule will be

– What the season tournament/travel schedule will be (at least by January)

– What the in-season practice schedule will be

Most of the top programs in the country provide this information early, a lot of it BEFORE tryouts and filling rosters. If I was a parent, I would want to know this information in advance.

It takes a lot of blind trust to commit to a team or program without this information in hand.

This now includes the easy way to play baseball at the next level.

The Gamers program is built around Hard Work and Passion. These are the cornerstones of our pyramid of success. We practice a lot, work hard and have high expectations on and off the field. In our opinion it is the right way to do things, regardless of how talented players may be. Even the most talented players need to work hard — because being talented in St. Louis does not translate into being talented and successful at the next level.

There is “no easy way out” in the Gamers program. This is our image and reputation in the youth baseball market, and it is true.

But, snake oil salesmen have ridden into town (actually, they have been here a while). They target talented baseball players and sell them a magic potion that looks like this:

“Come to our program. We don’t practice as much, have friendlier coaches, don’t work as hard and have lower expectations. Don’t believe the Gamers BS about Hard Work and Passion. Plus, because we reduce un-needed coaching and instruction, our program may cost less. Easier, plus less money. A deal you can’t refuse.”

This is almost comical. Get better, by working less. Snake oil potions, combined with some multi-level Amway marketing.

Some parents and players fall for this pitch. Like the magic weight loss, hair growth and smart pills from frontier days. Sounds great for parents — a lot less driving around and fewer practices.

Don’t believe the snake oil salesmen. You cannot lose weight unless you eat less and/or burn more calories. Sorry Dorothy, but the Wizard is just a man hiding behind a curtain.

There is no easy way out if you want to be an elite baseball player. Especially, here in the Midwest, where the baseball season is too short and you do not get nearly enough reps by just playing. If you are extremely talented, you may get to the next level on raw talent alone. But, you will not succeed at the next level unless you understand Hard Work and Passion.

There is no easy way out if you are pursuing excellence and competing against yourself to be the best you can be. It takes hard work, a lot of practice, challenging coaches, high expectations and a lot of dedication. That is the magic formula. There is no easy way out.

Or, I have great deal where you can work from home 3 hours a day and earn $100k …

Harder than playing football, harder than engineering school, harder than working in the oil fields, harder than Harvard Business School and harder than climbing the corporate ladder for 20 years.

It was a constant personal battle between emotion and logic. I was not good at it. In all my years of coaching, I have only met a couple of people who are.

So, I read every book and watched every DVD on coaching baseball, looking for the answer. I poured a lot of time and personal capital into the quest. The answer was not there.

That is pretty much verbatim the sales pitch.

One dad/player fell for the sales pitch. They promised that he would be a high round draft pick if he changed programs. He made the change the first weekend of the summer without any advance notice to us. He was never close to being drafted and is currently on the roster of a D1 program at a state school where he probably would have received a 100% academic scholarship with or without baseball.

Since then, 55 Gamers players from the classes of 2010 and 2011 have NOT fallen for the false promises. They have worked hard, become good players, and made it into college baseball through their efforts in the Gamers program. 55 players in the past 2 years.

But, the sales pitch and false promises continue from other programs. Ad nauseum.

No administrator or baseball program can promise your son a college baseball scholarship or a high round draft pick. This kind of talk belongs on the used car lot.

These opportunities are totally within control of the player. If you are talented, athletic, play the game right, work hard in the weight room and get good grades, you create your own opportunity to play college or professional baseball. No one does it for you. You do it yourself.

55 players in 2 years playing college baseball. And they did it themselves, as part of the Gamers program. We are proud of them.

No promises, no free passes. Just old fashioned sweat and effort.

St. Louis Gamers 8-run Action Baseball Club Green
6/30/2011 2:04:22 PM

In the consolation bracket this morning the St. Louis Gamers beat Action Baseball Club 15u Green in 5 innings putting the 8-run rule in effect. The final score was 11-3. Joseph Tanner of the Gamers had a strong day going 3-3 with 3 RBI’s and 2 runs scored. He stays inside the ball well, has a quick bat, balanced swing, and a compact swing. Paul Iseman of the Gamers also had a good day at the plate; he was 2-3 with 1 run scored and 1 RBI.

St. Louis Gamer top the long Island Rays
6/29/2011 11:14:40 AM

The bats came alive for the St. Louis Gamers today when the racked up 12 hits in 4 innings of play. Aaron Kopelman showed up to play for the Long Island Rays strung together the only 2 hits for the Rays today, breaking up Joseph Tanners no-no. Kopelman has a good eye, is a patient hitter, and a slightly crouched stance. Tanner throws with a high 3/4 arm angle, has limited arm speed, with a good follow through, and a projectable frame.

Sandy Plains Wildcats Defeat St. Louis Gamers
6/28/2011 3:18:50 PM

The Sandy Plains Wildcats won an 8-2 game against the St. Louis Gamers 15U Gray. Jack Pomerantz started for the Wildcats and threw 77-80 mph with his fastball. He comes at hitters from a high ¾ arm angle and has short arm action. Chase Solomon shone at the plate, staying inside the ball well with his quick bat. Cody Hardage helped out on offense and showed a balanced swing.


East Cobb Angels/St. Louis Gamers Tie
6/28/2011 1:31:22 PM

The East Cobb Angels and St. Louis Gamers 15U Blue played to a 3-3 tie today. Ryan Young averaged 74-77 mph with his fastball for the Angels, using a quick arm and changing speeds to fool hitters. Young also displayed armside run with his fastball while throwing easy. Jack Rouse had a solid day at the plate for the Gamers, showing an aggressive approach at the plate to go along with a quick bat and raw power.

This is a naive myth. Do the math …

Uniforms $300

Tournaments & Games $800 per player (entry fees only, we play in high end tourneys)

2 paid coaches – $500

100 hours of instruction – $1400 (thats $14 per hour, including facility rentals)

Total $3000 per player.

We do not pay our instructors or coaches too much. We pay them fairly, and they work harder than any other group I have seen.

The myth that club baseball is “all about the money” is out of touch with reality. It is all about what you get for the money.

Now, if a program does not play in high end tournaments, has unpaid coaches, does not provide 100 hrs of instruction, marks up travel costs and still charges $3000+, then maybe the critics have a point. The math does not work in that case.

This is not true. Although we have put 52 players into college baseball in 2010 and 2011, we don’t promise anything to players and parents. The only way to play college baseball is to be talented, skilled, work hard and get good grades. We can help with this. But, there are no promises — it all starts and ends with the player.

We have never said that. If a player is talented, skilled, works hard and gets good grades, then he will have an opportunity to play college baseball. Some kids can play legion baseball during the summer, and still make it into college baseball.

Almost 50% of our high school age players play multiple sports. They find the time to work on baseball in the winter, play their second sport and keep their grades up. Not much time for partying and hanging out. But, our multi-sport athletes work hard and do things right. We are proud of them.

We want our players to take baseball seriously. A second sport cannot be used as an excuse for not working hard at baseball.

Someone actually posted this on a local sports discussion forum…. crazy. Kind of shows the length some people will go to bad-mouth a program.

We adopted Gamechanger last year (the “pilot” program for Gamechanger) to keep track of our 13 teams and to consolidate all the stats. The design of Gamechanger was built around the stats that we keep as a program — things like quality at bats, and first pitch strikes.

But Gamechanger is an independent company. It makes money by providing “live” game info to parents that it sells through a subscription. It is a nice feature for parents. But, the Gamers do not make a dime off of it.

This one is out of touch too.

Bus trips provide an opportunity for our parents to “take the weekend off” and stay at home. Each high school age team does 1-3 trips per summer. Again, do the math on bus trip costs and you will see that $300 per player barely covers the cost. We travel on high quality, safe, large buses driven by Vandalia, the top charter service in the area. And, we stay in nice hotels with hot breakfast. Buses rent for $1000 per day. Hotels are $100 per night. It quickly adds up to $300 for a 4 day bus trip.

Some other programs travel in passenger vans and stay in lower quality hotels. Perhaps those trips cost less than $300 per trip. But, you get what you pay for. I would rather travel on safe buses for an extra $50-100 per player.

We do not do bus trips every weekend because we know that a lot of parents want to attend the games. So, to have bus trip costs plus parent travel costs is redundant. I am not sure why some programs do bus trips every weekend and make parents pay double. That math does not work.

I can say universally that none of our coaches, including me, enjoys traveling on summer weekends. It is costly and a major impact on our families. It is a sacrifice we make to ensure that our players are playing the right competition and are in an environment where they can be seen by college coaches.

We would love to stay in St. Louis 8 weekends a year. We have worked hard to bring tournament operations like Pastime tournaments and DiamondSports tournaments to St. Louis (before us, these tournaments organizations did not even operate in St. Louis). We continue to work on it.

There are enough good baseball players in the St. Louis area to host 2x the number of tournaments that are currently hosted here. But, there are parochial barriers to this happening.

So, until progress is made on this front, we will not take the easy way out and have our teams/players play in below average local events that are not exposure-oriented. Until we get more of these events into St. Louis, we will continue to be away from our families during the summer. Our players need to play against the top competition available. If that is not available in St. Louis, then we will travel.

First, only 25-33% of Gamers players take individual lessons at All-Star Performance. Way less than 1/2 the players.

Second, our program provides a lot of instruction that is already baked into the program fees. There is no requirement to add individual lessons on top of this. Some players do, because they are working hard to improve and want more direct one-on-one coaching from an instructor. But, it is not a requirement of the program.

We have now had hundreds of players go through high school baseball as freshmen and sophomores. Some have had great experiences. Others had bad experiences. It is important to have your expectations set properly and go into the high school baseball experience with the right mindset.

First a little grounding in reality. Of the 2010 Gamers playing college baseball right now, here is what they did during their freshman and sophomore years in high school:

During their freshmen year, 50% played freshman ball, 35% played JV and 15% played varsity.

During their sophomore years, 60% played JV and 40% played varsity.

Every situation is different. Some of our players go to huge high schools, some to small high schools. Some high school coaches push younger players to play “up”, while other coaches have firm policies to play juniors and seniors.

So, don’t get too caught up on whether you play freshman, JV or varsity baseball. Obviously, we would like you to play at the varsity level and hope that you get that opportunity.

But, we have had a number of players go on to play D1 college baseball that never played “up” in high school and did not even start as juniors. High school baseball is not necessarily a good indicator of college baseball potential or opportunities.

The opportunity to play “up” depends on a lot of factors, many of which are entirely outside of your control. My observation is that the process of selecting players to play “up” is not necessarily based on a players’ baseball talent, skill or attitude. Other factors clearly come into play, making the process seem almost random

This randomness can be quite frustrating for high school athletes and parents. But, it is outside of your control.

So, if you are selected to play “up”, congratulations. You need to work hard, continue to improve, earn playing time, be a leader and play like a Gamer.

Your challenge is to get pick up good habits from older teammates, and not pick up bad habits. I have seen too many freshmen play at the varsity level for all four years, and never get significantly better. By the time they are juniors, they start getting passed by. It happens all the time…don’t let it happen to you.

If you are not lucky enough to be selected to play “up”, just relax and focus on the things that can control. You need to do the same things as the players that are playing “up” — work hard, continue to improve, earn playing time, be a leader and play like a Gamer.

Your challenge is to overcome lower quality competition, fields and umpires to use the high school experience to improve your game, develop your skills and prepare you for the summer. With the right mindset, you can have a very successful and productive high school season without playing “up”.

This is what “pursuing excellence” is all about. You compete against yourself to get better, day by day, regardless of the level of competition you are facing. This is how you can take control of your high school baseball experience.

Remember John Wooden’s definition of success — “Success is the peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best that you are capable of becoming“.

Learning and mastering this mental approach is 10x more important than whether or not you play “up” as a freshman or sophomore in high school baseball. This is the mental approach that will ultimately help you succeed at higher levels of baseball and other aspects of your life.

• Our players play high school baseball from March-May
• Most high school baseball coaches and programs are trying to do a good job
• We have a responsibility to support our players and do whatever we can to support their high school programs & coaches.

In short, we want our players to succeed in high school baseball. And, we want to have positive relationships with high school coaches.

Those are all positives that are possible through high school baseball.

But, unfortunately, there are also a lot of potential negatives from the high school baseball experience. Most people know the list of negatives and will have to deal with some or all of them — school politics, bad weather, bad coaching, bad fields, wasted practice time, inconsistent competition, low expectations, bad fundamentals, large rosters, lack of hustle, disrespectful player behavior, pitcher abuse, etc…

The reality is that, in many high schools in the region, baseball is secondary sport (to football, basketball and in St. Louis even soccer). Every high school program is different and has both negatives and positives. That is true in all sports.

So, we give our Gamers players the following guidance regarding high school baseball:

• High school baseball is a complement to summer baseball, not a substitute. Summer/Fall baseball is the biggest exposure opportunity and most challenging competition for college bound players.

• You need to work hard during the Winter to be ready to succeed in high school baseball beginning March 1st.

• Offseason high school workouts are a complement to your Gamers winter workouts, not a substitute. We have clear evidence and experience that players get significantly better during the Gamers Winter program. The same is not true for many offseason workouts at high school programs.

• You need to take advantage of the practice and rep time available during high school baseball. It is your choice on whether or not to use that time to get better. Make the right choice.

• Similarly, each player has the choice of being a leader or a follower in their high school program. We encourage our players to play and practice like Gamers, even in their high school program. This style of play requires courage and leadership if it is not the “culture” of your high school program.

• You need to take responsibility for staying healthy during the high school baseball season — especially pitchers. Do not pitch past your pitch count limit. Make sure that you are properly warmed up and ready to pitch before taking the mound. If you are not throwing enough during team practices, take care of it during your own time. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOU OWN ARM HEALTH.

In short, we advise our Gamers players to take personal accountability and responsibility for their time in high school baseball — for all aspects of their game.

We invite the top club team organizations in the region to join us at these tournaments.