Anyone who knows me knows I am a hat backwards guy.  I like the bill out of my face, accept when I get to the baseball field.

For those of you who dream of playing college baseball I tell you this, when you step out of your car at the baseball field you should look professional.  What this means is your hat should be on straight, your jersey tucked in, and you should have tennis shoes or cleats on.  Please do not wear flip flops or slippers to the game.  You can not warm up in them and they make you look like absolute crap.

If you ever see a college coach at a game you will notice during warm ups they move around a lot in order to get different perspectives and angles.  Also, what you might not notice is how they were in the parking lot watching you walk up to the game.  Coach Decker at Western Michigan University was on a recruiting trip to watch a pitcher (I will not say his name but I will tell you,he made an MLB All-Star team.  Coach Decker was walking up to the game in which he was going to wacth him pitch and on his way to the field he saw an altercation in which the player he was there to see was yelling at his mother and he called her the B-word.  At that point Coach Decker knew he was not going to fit into his program and he turned and left.  I know you are thinking what an idiot, but that is not true, Coach Decker had a job and a family, and recruiting a bunch of punks isn’t going to go over well with the University.  Coach made the correct decision in this case.  Another story I was told first hand by a different coach who was recruiting a player involves the parking lot as well.  The coach is sitting in his car doing some paper work since he got to the game early.  The first car that pulls up happens to be the kid he is there to watch, which you think would be a good thing right?  No, the kid gets out of his car his hat is backward and to the side, his jersey unbuttoned and not tucked in, and he was wearing designer shades.  Come on designer shades to the ball park, who is this kid.  The kid walks to the field and coach leaves, he didn’t even watch him play.  A few days later the coach gets a call from the kids high school coach wondering why he didn’t come out to the game since he said he would.  Coach said “I did”. well I didn’t see you, but at least you saw the two doubles and the HR” the H.S. says.  Coach says “no I didn’t see any of the game”.  Confused the H.S. coach asks “why not”.  Coach says “I saw enough in the parking lot”.  This player was good enough to play for the school and good enough to get a scholarship, but he blew it because he looked like a punk.

Remember look professional and always play like someone is watching, because you never know who is.  A scout might be there to see a kid you are playing against, but that still means he is there, and if you follow those two simple rules and are good enough you just might get a shot.  Also, coaches share information, so a bad rap is not a good thing to get, to get stuck with, but if you impress a coach he might tell another school hey this kid is a good ball player I think he would fit your program.  To clarify this Texas would not say that to LSU but Texas might tell a community college coach or a smaller school that.