Showcase Rant

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Sep 26, 2011
30
8
Been whirlwind of a last Softball Weekend. When the travel ball season started we had our Tourney/showcase schedule all mapped out. Play 3 local tourneys, 1 local showcase a trip to Long island and end the year with New England’s finest.

At the time it made sense to or our newly formed missmosh of a team. Get your barring by playing locally then a not so quick trip to LI to play some different competition and end the year for this 16u B team to an 18u showcase in Mass. sounds good right?

Well this “showcase” wasn’t good for our girls at all. We were out of our league. Playing up so we can be seen. Was good in theory. Assuming you can hang. Well scoring 8 runs in 6 games while giving up who knows how much didn’t do too much for our girls confidence. Couple things were against us from the beginning.

1: Our team was imploding with little to no direction from the organization. We found out our coaches weren’t returning 2 weeks ago on social media. Leaving 11 girls without knowing if they had a team next season. “Come to tryouts to earn a spot on one of next years teams”.

2: when schedules came out we found out our hotel was 45+ min from the field. Makes getting to that 7:30 am start a little rough. Mad rush to change bookings couple weeks before the event. Got that completed but come checkin the new closer hotel was anything but new. IDK maybe the people running the showcase should actually vet out the hotels??. Run down, under staffed and crawling with critters. Saw the ants but who knows what else was lurking. So Friday was mad dash for most parents to get alternative accommodations. Spent 45min on the phone getting a new hotel. Others opted to stay and braved the bugs. Nothing says team bonding like 11 families spread over 5 different MA or RI hotels.

3: the games themselves. Yes we were overmatched but do you need to keep stealing bunting and advancing extra bases when your up by double digits in the 3rd inning? Not to mention arguing every play like you’re in the World Series.

4: game balls:: would it kill the organizers to have more than 2 balls available per field? HR balls hit into the woods are tough to find. We actually ran out of balls 2 times in 6 games. You’re pulling In big bucks and can’t afford a couple cases of balls??

5: game sites: touting dozens of college coaches is great but how many of them make it to the outskirts?? The venues are 30+ miles apart. Was at the field for 2 of the 3 days and saw 1. Yes 1 coach. Granted our girls may not be college game ready but a few of the players on the other teams were. How many of them got to show off there speed stealing second in a 13-0 game (yes tongue firmly in cheek) at 2:00 pm on a Sunday 2 hours after the host left with the balls???

Bottom line I’ve seen local events put on by LL organizations run better. The money charged for these types of events is obscene.

The pressure put on orgs to enter these events is just as bad. Not every team is a “showcase” team. Not every team needs to waste the money to prove their worth. Getting players onto a college team doesn’t have to be the only goal. Games should be competitive and fun. Losing 5/6 games isn’t fun. Putting a 16uB level team in an 18u showcase isn’t in anyone’s best interest.

Is there a place for showcases? Maybe? Should every girl aspire to play in college? Maybe not? Should everyones goal be to spend 2k to play 6 games in clearly an alternate site just so you can claim we play showcases? I can think of better ways to spend the money.


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Sep 26, 2011
30
8
Getting to Long Island is never easy. Either brave the traffic or pay for the ferry. Once in the area the trip was good.

Accommodations were nice but a bit pricey. The event was good. Girls played well. Won a couple lost a couple and were competitive. Won our first bracket game but lost our second in walk off. Was good back and forth game.

The highlight however was when a coach was ejected for arguing with an umpire. The place erupted with cheers. Coach had it coming. Everything was an argument.


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Jun 20, 2015
848
93
honest truth can hurt.

1. If you were overmatched at the showcase a) why were you there? B) why would you expect college coaches to travel to the outskirts to see those type of games? 16uB in an 18u showcase is a fool's errand.

the college coaches will go to where they can see max numbers of players that have reached out and provided schedules and max number of games without driving all over creation.

2. hotel - honestly 45min from the fields is close. it's nothing here in Ohio to drive 2hrs to be at fields at 7am warm ups, 8am games. both Sat & Sunday.

3. Stay to play is evil and MANY, MANY teams boycott tourneys that do it. OR just say shove your hotel rule bologna.
 
May 11, 2018
91
18
My DD has attend this showcase 2 yrs in a row. I can tell you if players are not reaching out to colleges with their schedules they are not showing up. many teams at this showcase actually have college coaches or assistant coaches coaching the teams there. I could be wrong but im pretty sure this is not a stay to play event. there is a lot of great colleges in new england and they will come out to see players who have reached out to them weeks before the showcase starts as long as its not the first contact from the player.
 
Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
Welcome to Big girl Ball. I don't know if this rant is complaining about the Showcase event or his DD's team. Why would a TD put an unknown 16B team on the Main Field with an 18U Gold team? 45 minutes seems pretty good to me. Living in Houston just about every field is 30min to an hour away. For the most part sounds like a typical weekend of softball.
 
Jun 23, 2018
222
63
Texas
Welcome to Big girl Ball. I don't know if this rant is complaining about the Showcase event or his DD's team. Why would a TD put an unknown 16B team on the Main Field with an 18U Gold team? 45 minutes seems pretty good to me. Living in Houston just about every field is 30min to an hour away. For the most part sounds like a typical weekend of softball.
LOL, Houston is 30 to 45 minutes to go to the corner store.

We drove 45 minutes Saturday morning for a tryout for a team that will practice almost an hour away.
 

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