Saratoga Stampede Baseball

From all of us at the Saratoga Stampede We wish everyone a Happy and Healthy Holiday Season. It won't be long and we will be back on the field competing and growing as baseball players in 2021! Happy Holidays to Everyone!

This is more a Union College Baseball post, but it is consistent with my recent posting about players who work hard to improve and what can happen at 13 or 18! Today, my pitcher, Jake Fishman was taken in the MLB Rule 5 draft by the Miami Marlins! This is great for my man! The rule 5 draft was designed so organizations could not stockpile talent and leave them in the minor leagues. Toronto is loaded with young talent! This acquisition by the Marlins sends a message that they ...are very interested in Jake and willing to provide an immediate opportunity for him to advance to the "show" Great news for Jake, he deserves it! This was a guy who could not get a single Division 1 college to even look at him! The power of dedication at work!

Hello Everyone We are busy finalizing our tournaments, we will have a schedule out right after the Holidays to help you plan. Our Rec. 13u team will be playing a competitive ENYTB schedule which will include 20 local games. We are also planning to host a tournament for this team this summer. I am planning to spend at least once a week working with this group. I believe this group will develop into a special group of players. ... Let's put things in perspective, this is a group of 12 and 13 year old young men who will develop athletically, academically into special players and people, how do I know? I have watched many players (including myself) come up this way and develop! I had a player at Union who developed late (his senior year), not 1 D1 school in the entire country wanted him, I recruited him to be my starting CF, he went on to be the NCAA pitcher of the year (all levels), he had a .041 ERA (allowing 3 runs the entire 2016 season)! He was a finalist in the Golden Spikes award (Sporting News best non professional player. He was the best pitcher in the nation! He was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jay's in 2016 and is currently in AAA Buffalo, close to making it to the majors! His name is Jake Fishman and he was his high school's #4 pitcher! I have another boy who is similar, he is a SS and he is a late bloomer. Colin Kelly could not make his local travel program! Today, he is one of the top players in the Country and will also be drafted into MLB this summer. So, bottom line, if your son wants it, he will be given the instruction to improve his game every day. I guarantee you all, some who are on the Rec team this summer will zoom past others in our program, I have seen it happen many times!!!! Some who are average players today will advance to play College baseball while others who have skills today, will not advance (many reasons), but proven to be the case year over year! Ages 12-15 are for growth and development, these are very important years, it must be fun for them and at the same time, challenging! Ages 16-17 are make or break years for players looking to advance to College baseball. All you need to do is look at the percentages to see how challenging it is to reach college baseball! This is why I am so proud of our program, over 95% of our kids (since we started in 2001) have advanced to play college baseball! Reminder, we have our registration forms out to all of you. Please make sure to get them back in by 12-15 so we can finalize our plans for the summer! Lastly, if COVID seems to improve, we will look at Winter Work, but in the interest of health and safety, we are still on pause.

Summer Skills Camp This camp will be run by me and my Union College staff as well as some of our Stampede Coaches. Every year, there is high demand for us to run clinics around the Capital District. I want to be able to make this clinic available to Stampede players on a priority basis. We will see what the participation interest is and then set up clinic dates with the City. This information will come back via the registration form which will be sent out this week

Hello Everyone Just a quick update on some details for our program that you need to know. 1. We are planning out our 2021 season and moving forward to secure our travel and home tournaments. Our teams are selecting between Providence RI 4th of July, Old Orchard Beach Maine the end of June, Sports at the Beach in Delaware and several others. In addition, our teams will compete in the Battle of the Borders right here in Saratoga 7/15-7/18. We are sending in our money to secure ...spots for each of these now as they do fill quickly. 2. At this time, due to the spike in our region with COVID 19, we have decided to hold off on starting Winter Work pending the direction of this terrible virus. We have to look at the safety of our players and Coaches first. Until we see a turnaround in this pandemic, we are putting all indoor work on hold. In the event we are not able to complete winter work, we will look at adding an additional travel tournament. 3. We are also planning to conduct a series of baseball skills camps in Saratoga this summer. These camps will be run by my staff and I both with the Stampede and Union College. 4. We are going to also offer a college prospect camp this summer for the players who will graduate in 2022-2024. This will provide a unique opportunity for Stampede players to showcase in front of over numerous colleges from the region. We ran this in 2019 and had great results! 5. Be on the lookout for our registration form which will be emailed to you. It is important to get your deposit back into us next month to secure your spot in the program. Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!