Mark Delagarza

Parents Please Read. Have you ever wondered why travel baseball is so expensive? I registered for a three game guarantee tournament in Jacksonville Florida for two teams. My cart included the PG team registration fee of $99.00 per team. A $1600 hotel penalty. A $590 gate fee and the normal registration of $1295 per team for two teams. This brings the total to $4978 to bring two teams to Jacksonville for a three game guarantee tournament. That is $830 per team per game. Our group travels in vans and packs kids into air BnB houses to make it affordable for parents that can't attend because of something called work. Perfect Game not only mandates hotel rooms but the requirement of 34 rooms is absolutely criminal. Any team on a budget that travels with the team and coaches would not need close to that many rooms. They would put four kids in a room and have a coaches room in essence needing five rooms. Perfect Game assumes this is vacation time for the kids and parents and everyone has money to spend and vacation leave time. NLB is in the panhandle of Florida and parents bust their asses to be able to provide their kids the travel ball experience. We do everything in our power to make it affordable for parents and Perfect Game should do the same. Hi Ryan, I assume you are inquiring about the removal of the hotel waiver fees associated with the PG BCS 18U National Championship. Unfortunately, we are not able to remove these fees, as the PG Lodging Policy was agreed to at the time of tournament registration. Since your team is located approximately 300 miles from the event location, the team is required to fulfill the minimum hotel requirement of 34 room nights. Between the two teams, there was only 1 reservation made, totaling 4 room nights. As a result, the required room-night minimum was not met, and the hotel waiver fee remains applicable for both teams. Thank you for your understanding. Tia PG Hotel Operations

Are you playing summer baseball? The summer before freshman year of college and the disconnect. Getting on the field as a college freshman has become harder than ever before, most especially at the 4 year level. Rosters have gotten older. It is common for players to half ass the summer before their freshman year. They believed the recruiting hype and don't understand how physical and polished they have to be to get on the field. The summer in essence becomes their most important baseball summer to date. It either gives them a higher percent chance to fail or succeed. Advice Play as much as possible in the summer (competitive games). Be all in and make a 100% commitment. Don't jump ahead to playing in a college summer league. Credible highly organized collegiate summer leagues, like the Cape, Northwoods, Valley, etc. don't have high school players playing against players that have already played in college. There are so called college summer leagues around every corner now, very few are highly organized and most feature players that don't want to, or aren't good enough to play in real college summer leagues like the Cape, Northwoods, Valley, Coastal Plains, etc., etc., etc. Be intentional about getting stronger in the weight room, skill work, caloric intake, arm care and arm strength. The overwhelming majority of players don't understand how strong and physical they have to be to compete vs kids that are much older than them in some cases. The level of physicality shocks most freshman at 4 year schools. Don't be shocked. Get on a routine that requires discomfort and sacrifice. Get used to it. High level college baseball requires tremendous time management, sacrifice and discipline. Get up early, make your bed, do your laundry, help around the house, cook some of your own meals, etc. If going to a P5 or mid major, don't take the summer off to take a summer class or two on campus. You're obviously a good student if you qualified to get into school. The baseball side will be harder than the academic side as a freshman, if you simply go to class and apply yourself. You signed a baseball scholarship and have to be ready to win playing time when stepping on campus. Earning playing time is incredibly challenging for freshmen. Especially players that didn't turn down a lot of MLB signing bonus money to attend school. The portal gives coaches options to replace you, and they will always be trying to upgrade. When stepping on campus, nobody cares what you did in high school or travel ball, if you were drafted, who scouted you, how many offers you had or what you were ranked. You're going to have to earn your respect with your work ethic, maturity, toughness and performance. Keep your mouth shut and outwork people.