Coming soon to a ballpark near you - High School Baseball National Championship

It seems as if the National Federation of High Schools (NFHS) is greasing the wheels for a future high school national championship tournament.

According to an article by Lou Pavlovich in Collegiate Baseball the president of the NFHS is enamored by the idea and the Fed may begin national championships for individual sports such as tennis and golf (beginning in 2010/11 school year) prior to attempting to work out the more difficult logistical details of adding team sports like football, baseball and basketball.

Ennis Proctor, president of the NFHS stated that while "Baseball would probably be more manageable than other sports. Right now, we are in the infant stages for even having individual national championships. Team national championships are a long, long way away if we ever have them."

So for now, the so-called "mythical" national championship concept based on the opinions of experts like Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, et. al. appear to be safe.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/high-school/team-rankings/2010/269563.html


BTW, congrats to:
#13 ranked St. Rita (Chicago)
#18 ranked Alonzo High School (Tampa)
#28 Winnetka HS (Chicago)
for making the Baseball America pre-season list.

Many familiar names on the list. Presumably these schools will be in the running for future consideration in these tournaments given their "baseball powerhouse" status.

The details of the structure of the tournaments remains to be determined but I would expect that the various state tournaments would still remain in place. This is currently the pinnacle achievement for most baseball programs and the goal of virtually every high school baseball players in the country during this time of the year.

One of the details to be worked out appears to be determining who would represent each state from among the myriad of state champions that are crowned each year. Generally, schools are segregated by enrollment size and compete in conferences or divisions based on geography. Each "class" or level crowns its own state champion. Public and private schools are sometimes segregated due to size and differing rules regarding attendance.

NFHS officials acknowledge that the path to implementation may take some time but the model is based on a similar tournament that has been held in Japan for over 20 years with great success.

Included in great success is individual games featuring crowds of 40-50,000 and over 750,000 attendance over the course of a 15 day tournament as well as 50 million eyeballs watching on TV.
Which means "rights fees", which means $$$. Lots of money.

Initially over 3,000 schools in Japan begin the march to glory with the dream field whittled down to a final field of 49. Fifteen teams get an initial bye into the field and the thirty- four others play into the tournament field's second round.

JAPAN HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL TOURNAMENT INFORMATION:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_High_School_Baseball_Championship

Admittedly, I have mixed feelings on this as a future development. I am always heartened when I hear stories like this one that indicate baseball is rising in stature and importance nationally.

I understand that the level of interest in collegiate baseball has risen so much over the years that it is now considered a "revenue" sport by the NCAA. Which means it makes money for the schools.

Also, I have heard whispers that the major leagues, as part of their effort to "fix" the draft are more open to the idea of using the college programs more as a developmental platform than carrying the expenses of many of the lower classifications of minor league ball.

I am certain that this transfer of "assets" will only come after "control" of said assets is locked down by fixes to the draft similar to what the National Hockey League employs. In the NHL, a team "controls the rights" to a player it drafts out of high school for the next three or four years.

All this increased stature and attention sounds like a good thing initially. But the devil is always in the details and with the growth of stature, attention and money comes unforeseen problems as well. The administrators are going to have to take a long hard look at the impact that all these swirling ideas will have on the future of the "STUDENT"-athletes placed in their TRUST.