After impressive wins this week at Mount Carmel and at Barrington High School, and two out of state wins in Florida, Whitney Young with a 7-3 record deserves recognition in the top team rankings.

Whose rankings? Tribune? Sun Times? PBR. What difference does it make where you are ranked now. The only ones that matter are at the end of the year. Most teams would rather slide under the radar and surprise people in the tournament.

Begging for an early season ranking? This is so unbecoming.

Young is the city team that should have already been in the rankings. It really doesn't matter when it happens, so it might as well be now. The Dolphins feature basketball/baseball standout Julian Kenner who is a D1 signee and Coach Cassidy has a team that is deep with proven area talent including seniors Joe Frahm, Buddy Herbert, Valmer Jordan, Eric Tabb, Troy White, and Ray Whitehouse.

What teams are on your upcoming schedule Dolphin Mom ?

Who did he Kenner sign with?

Kenner signed with Long Island University.

For baseball?

For baseball indeed.

Look backwards or forwards, this identical Whitney Young team defeated Notre Dame in both games of a Double Header during the IHSA Summer League in July 2007 in games played at ND. It would seem that those games should have a bearing.

This is pathetic.

Dolphin mom--you have your priorities mixed up if you are that concerned about rankings at this time of year . I talked to a friend of mine today who has son at Nazareth and they werent even aware that Duncan had them ranked in top 10 in todays sun times and really could care less that they were . Most people would just give it a passing thought and move on and worry about more important things , not go on a message board tyring to drum up support . Besides, its not how you start --but rather how you finish .

We ( notre dame ) beat new trier last year during the REGULAR SEASON when they were unbeaten and ranked #1 , but didnt go campaigning on any message boards to be ranked . We took it for what it was worth . Your wins against us in the SUMMER pale in comparison . Stop whining

WY was ranked #48 in PBR 2008 season preview, along with a nice write up like the other top 50 teams. Maybe you didn't see it.

I think the dolphins should be commended for all their wonderful talents and achievements. Do you know how hard it is to run the bases on those tiny flippers? You really need to see it.

tralpaz - what an image... but do they make that Flipper noise as they round 2nd base?

DMom, PM me and we will start our own poll and rank the phins #1 every week the rest of the year. Fight the Power.

As someone who compiles his own rankings for his newspaper, it's been my experience that the ones who bark the loudest usually aren't around at the end of the year. And they need validation now because they know they won't be around at the end of the year.

We used to rank the top 10 Class A teams in the Peoria Journal Star area, which is about 50 teams.

My first year on the beat, a team that shall remain nameless kept harping for attention. Parents writing letters, kids and parents chirping on message boards, etc. That team lost in a sectional semifinal. A sectional didn't even produce a state qualifier that year.

As I was waiting to interview the coach and one of the players, the kids huddled right in front of me and called me an expletive and said I didn't know another expletive. Real classy.

On the other hand, the teams that know they're good just go about their business. And lo and behold, there they are at the end of the year in Joliet (or Geneva or Springfield in previous years).

I have found that on this site there are two types of posters; one who truly loves baseball in addition to loving his son and his team and one who's love is centered around promoting his son and his team.

Ben - D, that was a nice post.

Igball, you are very astute!

A couple of years ago, I was blessed with an outstanding team. Still, we were not noticed by the local media. We continued to win. After winning the Lincoln Tournament which is an outstanding tournament, one of the parents remarked that now the papers will have to recognize us. The parents couldn't understand why I wasnt' upset about the polls. In passing, I mentioned to one of the upset dads that the only "poll" I care about is the regional/sectional rankings. I told him that if I left those meeting without a #1 ranking then I'll be upset. Otherwise, polls are cosmetic. They can, at time, cover up very ugly teams playing very ugly schedules. That was my opinion then and now. Polls/rankings never won a game yet.

= Deleted bashing of parent and player. Please don't do that. Julie =

Everyone wants recognition if they think they have a good team. Nothing wrong with that. Seems like the papers always have the same teams up there every year based on reputation not necessarily on the present kids that are there and they miss out on alot of schools partly cause they don't do their homework but mainly because it's so hard to see and predict all the H.S teams.

And everyone on here is promoting something whether it's their H.S teams, kids, summer teams, players, lessons, camps, etc. So to call out one person that's proud of his kid is wrong, call out everyone else then while your at it.