Wondering if there are some of you out there who have attended the Fall Classic in Peoria? Any advice or tips on what it's like? 2010 son was invited to play and is looking forward to the opportunity.

This is a great showcase J23, and the only one of its kind during this time period in the west. The weather is nice, great facilities, and be assured that tons of scouts will be in attendance. Lots of college coaches (all divisions) show up to shop for their needs and track already committed recruits. Best viewing for them is early on, and you'll see a thinning out of scouts as the weekend goes on.
They don't really keep score in this one. Everybody plays the same amount of games, and games are simulated ones with 6 or so batters in each half inning. Pitchers usually go 3-4 innings.
As for advice, just be ready to shine when the man says play ball. Have your son be sure to contact any schools that have shown interest and let them know his schedule in advance.
One more thing. Don't just assume it will be warm all the time in AZ. It can sometimes be very cool in the morning in October, then warm to the 90s in the afternoon.

Have fun!

Have the guys start to hydrate way before they get to AZ and to have plenty of water while there.

Expect it to be pretty hot, though it has not been that hot lately, we have been there when it was 120+, it has not been that bad...but of course it is a dry heat!

Expect a lot of fields going at the same time, depending which classic you are going to, there could be a lot of coaches from the west US and scouts. Some will just pop from field to field, others will be looking for specific players or follow high visibility teams.

If you are talking about the Senior Fall Showcase my son attended last year as a junior. He really enjoyed it and so did I. He received alot of contacts from it. We are going back this year. I think Spizzle pretty much covered most of it. Last year on Saturday it got over 100 but the next morning was kind of cool. We will be in Tucson next week for the Perfect Game tournament.

Thanks for the responses guys! Yes I am referring to the Senior Fall Classic, despite my apparent ineptness in the spelling category. From the looks of the participating teams there's gonna be a lot of great baseball played.

I cannot wait for this event. I'm so excited! =]

Does anybody know if the college recruiters (or anybody else for that matter) watch the HS sophmores at this event? Since they have a tourney on Oct 30-Nov 1 at this month long event...

Yes there are scouts at the sophomore classic but far less than at the Junior classic. We went to both and there were several Western region teams at the Soph Classic, a few from elsewhere. A lot more came to the Junior, as well as a handful of pro teams.

Thanks for the info Fred...

Coach, if you have a skilled sophomore, my opinion is that he's better off getting on a good team that is playing in the Jr. Fall Classic. This year, I'm taking 3 sophomores on my team that'll be playing in the Jr. Last year, I believe coaches from 65 different universities signed in, plus juco coaches and pro guys. It's a great event.

We were down there last weekend for the Fall Invitational, the weather was great. It was in the 90s on Friday, but Saturday was only in the 80s and Sunday was beautiful right up till we left at noon.

Just got back from the AZ Jr. Fall Classic. Our league sent up a team of 2012's who showed well against all the 2011 teams they played. There were 2 other 2012 teams invited besides us. There were at least 2-3 scouts at every game. It was clear in a few 'games' even more scouts were tracking/following up on specific players. The SPARQ measurements were a good opportunity to benchmark/compare each participants progress. Weather was great. Hope to be back there, next year....

My son was on the 2012 AZPro team that played a team from Canada on Sunday that will remain nameless here on this post.

Everything went well until the 1st inning!

That's when the umpire threw out the other team's head coach for challenging pitches...followed after a few more pitches by the assistant coach, which then got a dad into the mix with the umpire. This dad showed little regard for his behavior and abusive language...no wonder some kids today have no respect for authority...wow, what a spectacle he caused in front of everybody...including college coaches and recruiters...

I'll agree...and disagree Coach P. The weather was certainly great. However, I was disappointed in the lack of scouting attendance. 2-3 scouts is not a lot when you consider the time and expense that is gone through to attend. On several occasions, while walking around watching games on other fields, I observed zero scouts watching. I realize that scouts may be more interested in 2011's than 2012's, and my son was 1 of only 2 2011's on a 2012 team. So this could had have a lot to do with it. But, we can stay home and have 20-30 scouts attend our MSL games. Somewhat disappointed.

Dadofones I think you have to look at the diversity and quality of programs compared to your Texas games. I doubt you would get Pac 10/Big West/WCC schools at your MSL games.

We generally had 2-4 at each game with others coming and going. There were also scouts up in the towers overlooking the fields that you might not have been aware of.

Many were at the Academic tryout, most were at the game. To me that was the single most important event of the weekend.

Well, wasn't aware of the tower. I understand the diversity of the programs that were represented, and I'm sure they were out there somewhere. Problem is...not at our games. Although my son did receive correspondence from 1 PAC 10, 1 Ivy League, and 1 from a military (probably what he needs most!) We played you on Saturday morning, and I apologize I didn't get over to try and meet you. By the way, here's a link to the site that updates our Dallas league and the colleges and pro teams that had been represented through the first couple of weeks.

http://hsbaseballreport.com/fo...d=27&posts=3&start=1

Dadofones, the Jr. Fall Classic was well attended by college coaches. Last year, coaches from 65 or so schools signed in, and it seemed about the same to me this year.

This year, we played in front of 30+ college coaches for our 4 games. One game only had 3 or 4 attending, but one game had 13 coaches there at the same time, so I can vouch that they were there. I know for a fact that more of them were up in the towers, as one coach I know called to talk to me about one of our players and I mentioned that I hadn't seen him at the game. He told me he was in the tower for the entire 2 hours.

Some teams tend to be followed more than others, based on the recruiters experience with them, and if they know that a team has legitimate prospects playing down there. We get pretty good coverage of our games each year, but I also put a lot of work in before we ever leave California to communicate with the college guys to let them know who's coming and give them an evaluation of our top players, along with our pitching rotation ahead of time. That makes it easy for them to know who they want to see and helps us get more coverage of our games. Also, my email distribution goes out to more than 40 college coaches who are familiar with our program, so we're making it as easy as possible for them to scout us.

You guys might think about doing some of this stuff, as I know it helps.

I would agree with catcherdad. The work put in before the tournament is very important. We email our schedule and pitching rotation well ahead of time so the colleges can plan their day. There was one pitcher we had that people were very interested in and that game got the most coverage. They knew when he was throwing so planned on being there. Our program having a good track record of having recruitable players is a major help.

There is more school watching than one might think. In coversations with some college coaches they said watched us play but I wasn't aware they were watching.

Catcherdad, who does your son play with?

My son no longer plays, he gave it up about a year ago after another arm injury, and now he's living large FISHING. He's actually down your way, working on a long range boat out of San Diego, catching tuna up over 200 pounds. He enjoys that as much as he enjoyed baseball.

My team is the EDH Vipers. We've played each other before, our 16u teams in the JOs.

I am couple hours from San Diego. We love going down there. You have a great and well respected program. I do not get to go to the JO's. I had gone for the first few years but now my coaches take the team. I don't miss the heat in June in Az.