I have looked at the website but can't get much of a feel for this league in Nashville. Can anyone give me some insight.

It's where my son played last year jmepop. The gentleman that ran the league is a great guy - Mickey Hiter. My son ended up working for him at the end of the summer doing some tournaments and things. None of the boys were able to find jobs for the summer if that's important to you. Son just mentioned earlier today (home for the day) that he is going to email Coach Hiter to come to a college game there in town this spring... son enjoyed getting to know him.

The teams play on a variety of fields... some really good and some not so good. The level of competition was ok.... certainly not one of your NCAA leagues, but better than many other opportunities out there. The living for the summer was very expensive as the boys shared apartments and living expenses for the summer, but that's still a big chunk considering they can't work.

My son grew as a pitcher... it was really a good fit for him as he was transitioning into that role. He ended up being one of the top pitchers in the league.

Son's team was the RiverRats and coached by a Lipscomb assistant, Lantz Wheeler. I can only say good things about him. He was knowledgeable, fair, and his players all enjoyed the experience playing for him. I don't know if he's coaching again or not. Most of the teams were put together before the summer and had a nucleus that was made up of one or two colllege teams. Son's was primarily Lincoln Trail JUCO kids (where he was as a freshman) with a couple of Lipscomb kids, another from a school in Bama, one in Georgia, one or two from Carson Newman and one from U of Dayton.

If you have anything in particular, feel free to PM me. My son is probably not going to pitch this summer, but did consider seeing if he could just go for the weekends and throw for Coach Wheeler if possible.

Also, I haven't looked at the site, but I know at the end of the summer the last few games hadn't been added to the stats. Apparently the gentleman that kept the site up with stats, etc. had an emergency that prevented him from being able to attend to that. I'm not sure if they finally got things in or not.

Laf,

Thanks for the input. I sent you a PM.

Anyone else have any input?

My son's team played in the league in the Summer of '04. They were basically an 18U team "playing up." It was good competition for them due to the fact that most of the other teams were comprised with players already 1-2 years into college. My son's team held its own, but had several D-1 signees on the team.

Biggest negative, for us, was that we commuted from Knoxville twice/week (about 5.5 hours roundtrip). It made for some late nights and tired eyes at work the next day.

We played most games at Shelby Park. The facilities there were very good. The other venues weren't quite as good.