First Base - The IHSBCA leadership would like to thank you for the many proposals that were submitted for the IIAAA and IHSAA to consider later this year. We appreciate the participation we received as we surveyed coaches about the proposals and we will get information regarding the results out in the August newsletter. Proposals will be submit-­ted and presented to the respective boards of the IIAAA and IHSAA in November and De-­cember. Thank you for continuing to look at ways that will make our sport better for coaches, players, and fans alike.

Second Base - As we proceed through the second season with our updated website, we would like to encourage you to continue to use it to post scores, schedules, and games wanted. The website can be a great resource for everyone involved in baseball at the high school level in Indiana. We intend to contin-­ue to find other ways to utilize the site includ-­ing using it this spring for the purpose of nomination players for All-State and Aca-­demic All-State. Check out the site for a spe-­cial video offer from the ABCA—13 VOD’s for $12.

Third Base - As the season moves into the

final couple of weeks prior to the start of Sec-­tional play, we are excited about the level and quality of baseball being played in the State of Indiana. We have talented teams in all four high school classes and many of our college programs continue to represent themselves very well at the various levels. If you haven’t gotten to a college game this spring try and get out and support our state programs.

Home Plate - Listed in this edition you will find information concerning Academic All-State and All-State nominations. You will also find listed the names and address of the District Reps who will be holding the annual North/South and Mr. Baseball nomination meetings on June the 7th, as well as the mem-­bers of the respective North/South committees that will meet in Indianapolis to select the teams. Please recognize that these processes are time sensitive and have specific deadlines that must be met for your player(s) to be giv-­en consideration. At the district meeting you will also have the opportunity to nominate a Coach for COTY and an Umpire for UOTY as well as a Media representative for each district. Please contact your district repre-­sentative if you have any questions regarding this meeting.

around the bases

The Academic All-State process will also be online this year and the link is already on the website. It is locat-­ed on the main page and titled Aca-­demic All-State nomination and the password is ACADEMIC. Once you enter the information you will get an e-mail confirmation and the nomina-­tion will be sent to Richard Hurt (Academic All-State Chairman). A reminder the final calculated number needs to be 8.000 to be a recipient of this honor. You may begin the pro-­cess at any time, but the DEADLINE is JUNE 7th. Continued on page 4

We never thought it would happen, but the weather finally broke;; the rain stopped;; and we are playing baseball! Our game was never designed to be played in the white stuff or the cold, but it is the cross that we bear with the month of April.

Lots of things to talk about for our spring meetings, awards, nominations, etc. so here we go! First of all, the all-state process will be totally online this year and will be accessible through our website ( www.ihsbca.org ). You will nominate and do BOTH phases of

voting online so there will not be any faxes, e-mails, mailings, etc. anymore. I am excited for the new change because it will be more efficient and I am hoping it dra-­matically increases participation. Please read the details in this newsletter!

Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association

executive director update

2015 I.H.S.B.C.A.

DATES

x Sectional Draw - May 19th

x Sectional Play Starts - May 27th

x Spring IHSBCA District Meetings - June 7th

x State Finals June 19th & 20th

x N/S All-Star Selection June 20th

x 2014 North/South All-Series at Indiana State July 9th-11th

x Junior Showcase - July 9th at Indiana State

Inside this issue:

Around the Bases & Director Update

1

NEW All-State Voting Process

2

District Reps

Contact Info 3

Baseball Strikes Out Kancer

3

Executive Director Update Cont.

4

North/South Se-lection Committee

5

College Records 6

May 2015 Volume XXXXII—Issue 4

indiana h.s. baseball news

Page 2 INDIANA H.S.BASEBALL NEWS Volume XXXXII ISSUE 4

NEW ONLINE ALL - STATE VOTING PROCESS (PLEASE READ) Gentlemen - This year the IHSBCA All-State voting process will be all done through a digital means on our web-­site. The IHSBCA has contracted with Jeff Becker and Sportz Ventures to handle this task. Jeff comes highly recom-­mended to us from several other state associations and, personally, I am excited about this venture.

All coaches will be required to register for the site. This is a short form that needs to be completed and asks for your name, school, email, phone, username (for all future logins and important to remember) and password. All of this infor-­mation will be stored in the system and automatically populated into any form you choose to complete moving forward. It also allows us to properly manage the voting process. Individuals who are logged into the site can view all of their submitted forms by clicking the 'completed forms' link in the footer.

The Nomination and voting process will take place in three phases and each phase will be accessible at www.ihsbca.org (i.e. our website). The nomination process will open on May 30th and close on June 7th at 9:00 PM. June 7th is the same day as our Spring Meetings and follows regional Saturday with the IHSAA tournament. If you do not enter your information by the deadline your players cannot be nominated. Also, you MUST be a member of the IHSBCA to nominate and vote for All-State.

Upon completion of the nomination process, single class voting will begin on June 9th and go through June 16th at 9:00 PM. Once the single class voting is done, the Final Stage of voting will begin on June 18th. This is where you can vote for all four classes. This voting will conclude on June 25th at 9:00 PM. All of the voting links and information are availa-­ble on the website and will be set up so you can only vote once during each phase.

A reminder that nominations are limited to four players per school.

I realize this is a brand new process and will cause some concerns initially for those who consider it to be unfriend-­ly. Please plan ahead accordingly in order to find someone who can help you navigate the process, if necessary. This is a step forward for the IHSBCA and, if it proves effective, we will explore more online activities as we move into the future. The cost is almost the same for the online process versus our old method of mailing so it is a good move mone-­tarily. Plus, your Executive Director will get two weeks of his life back and not have to 'lick' 800 envelopes!

TIMELINE:

June 7th @ 9:00 PM - all nominations need to be submitted online and nomination phase is closed

June 9th - 16 (9:00 PM) - Single Class voting time frame

June 18th - 25 (9:00 PM) - Final Four Class voting time frame

RESULTS WILL BE FINALIZED AND POSTED ONLINE BY JUNE 30th

Thanks for your patience with the Council as we explore new options and with your participation in the process! Please contact Brian Abbott if you have questions or concerns (260-358-7310).

NORTH/SOUTH ALL-STAR INFORMATION

The All-Star process is for SENIORS ONLY and you have to attend the Spring Meeting on June 7th to nomi-­nate players for consideration. Candidates are selected at the Spring Meetings and them forwarded to the North and South Committees. These committees convene at the state finals on June 20th to select the two 25 man squads.

Page 3 INDIANA H.S. BASEBALL NEWS May 2015

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District A Mark Schellinger Merrillville H.S. mschelling@mvsc.k12.in.us District B Rollie Thill Boone Grove H.S. thill@ptsc.k12.in.us District C Jim Treadway Concord H.S. concordhsbaseball@yahoo.com District D Pat McMahon F.W. Canterbury H.S. mcmahontires@comcast.net District E Andy McClain Norwell H.S. thebaseballcoach@hotmail.com District F Mike Larrabee Yorktown H.S. mlarrabee@yorktown.k12.in.us District G Jay Malott South Dearborn H.S. Jay.malott@sdcsc.k12.in.us District H Brad King New Castle H.S. bking1@nccsc.k12.in.us District I Ryan Wolfe Plymouth H.S. rwolfe@plymouth.k12.in.us District J Tyler Rosenbarger Benton Central H.S. trosenbarger@benton.k12.in.us District K Matt Cherry Fishers H.S. mcherry@hse.k12.in.us District L Dan Ambrose Heritage Christian H.S. dan.ambrose@heritagechristian.net District M Kyle Kraemer Terre Haute South H.S. kwk@vigoschools.org District N Jeremy Richey Seymour H.S. richeyj@scsc.k12.in.us District O Brian Kirchoff Northeast Dubois H.S. bkirchoff@nedubois.k12.in.us District P Mike Goedde Evansville Central H.S. Michael.Goedde@evsc.k12.in.us

DISTRICT REPS Following the North/South nomination meetings on June 7th, please e-mail player nominations from the North to Steve Stutsman at ste-­ves@elkhart.k12.in.us and the South to Chris McIntyre at cmcintyre@nafcs.k12.in.us.

BASEBALL STRIKES OUT KANCER Coaches - As of May the 5th, we have only had a handful of programs that have registered an event with the American Cancer Society. If you have conducted a game for this pro-ject, please contact Sarah Pooler and get your funds turned in to her. If you were unable to hold your event due to weather or didn’t originally schedule one, please consider putting it on your schedule here at the end of the season. If you schedule an event, please share the dates with Sarah and send her in-formation about the event and she will be happy to share the information throughout the State of Indiana on their Facebook page—http://facebook.com/CVCIndiana. You can contact Sa-rah at the American Cancer Society by e-mail at sa-rah.pooler@cancer.org or at 517-664-1311. The IHSBCA and American Cancer Society appreciates your support in this extremely worthy project.

On April 23rd, Bedford North Lawrence hosted an event that raised over $5,000—fantastic job BNL. Below are a couple pictures from the event.

Page 4 INDIANA H.S. BASEBALL NEWS Volume XXXXII ISSUE 4

executive director update - continued from page 1 Spring meetings for North – South All – Star nominations will be held on June 7. Your district rep will contact you with time and location. I will try to post meeting times on the website if I can get enough advanced notice from each district rep.

The process for our proposals is moving forward. We will present our proposals in November and give updates in the August and October newsletters.

Chris, Shane, and myself attended an IHSAA Directors meeting on May 1 in Indianapolis and had the opportunity to listen to all sports discuss issues that are relevant to high school athletics. It was interesting to hear the IHSAA talk about how football is trying to cut back the number of dates in the summers and the IHSAA liked that approach. They felt it gave coaches some much needed time off.

The IHSAA also encouraged all coaches to evaluate the summer and see how we can give our athletes some down time as a school in general. I tend to agree with the approach, but if your school has certain programs that go 3-5 days a week all sum-­mer and the down time is not mandated by your athletic department then that gives you very little control over the decision. In listening to this conversation I realized that baseball programs don’t do as much in the summer as a school as they used to since the addition of travel ball and summer leagues. Baseball used to be a priority in the summer for a coach working with his high school team, but that doesn’t seem to be reality today.

As a coach and the Executive Director of the IHSBCA, I am all for having some time off and for our athletes having down time. I have been back in baseball for two years now and I am seemingly going year round doing something all the time. Part of it is because I love what I do and part of it is an expectation that comes with coaching today’s athlete. In order to truly ‘corral’ the summer and bring some sanity back to year round open gyms / workouts / showcases / travel teams / etc. we have to sit and have local conversations about who is taking all of the athlete’s time away from them. That discussion will not take place in this venue, but it is not hard to follow at the local level…..just open your eyes. The true answer to this problem, ac-­cording the IHSAA Commissioner, is to have an AD who has control of his coaching staff and mandates / designates time on task. I thought that was an interesting point and that is why I will end with it!

Good luck in the tourney,

Brian

IHSBCA.ORG

IHSBCA POTY, COTY & Mr. Baseball Coaches—The IHSBCA POTY & COTY nominations take place at the 16 district meetings June 7th. The Mr. Baseball winner is selected by our membership during voting for All-State and the winner will be recognized at the North/South banquet in July. COTY winners will be recognized and awarded their certificate at the Hall of Fame dinner during the IHSBCA Clinic in January.

2015 STAT LEADERS You can find sta s cal leaders by going to this MaxPreps link: 1) Go to the IH-­‐SAA website(www.ihsaa.org) 2) Click on “Sports” link and select baseball 3) Se-­‐lect 2014-2015 and then click on “State Sta s cal Leaders”

Did You Know?!?! - On August 17, 1957, Richie Ashburn of the Philadelphia Phillies hit spectator Alice Roth with a foul ball, breaking her nose. As Roth was being carried off the field on a stretcher, Ashburn hit her with another foul ball, breaking a bone in her knee. The odds of a fan being hit by a baseball are 300,000 to 1. The odds of the same fan being hit twice during the same at-bat, and breaking bones both times, must be astronomical.

- Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were considered to be the three greatest outfielders of their era. They finished with virtually the same career slugging percentages: .555, .557 and .558 respectively. That's a difference of three thousandths of a whole number.

- Gaylord Perry was a notoriously weak hitter. San Francisco Giants manager Alvin Dark joked with reporters, saying: "They'll put a man on the moon before Gaylord Perry hits a home run." Then on July 20, 1969, a mere 20 minutes after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Perry hit his first home run in the major leagues.

- New York Yankee Don Larsen, a mediocre 81-91 lifetime pitcher, pitched the only perfect game in World Series history on October 8, 1956. Oddly, Larsen's wife filed for divorce that same day.

- How many times was Roger Maris intentionally walked the year he hit 61 homers? Answer: Zero. (He had Mickey Mantle hitting behind him.)

- In the third inning of his May 10, 2013 start against the Padres, Alex Cobb faced four hitters, struck out all four and still gave up a run (WP, SB, SB, balk).

Page 5 INDIANA H.S. BASEBALL NEWS May 2015

Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association 2340 Guilford Street Huntington, IN 46750 Phone: 260-356-3031

Email: babbott@ctlnet.com

IHSBCA website: www.ihsbca.org

North/South Committee Information

The selection of the 2015 North and South All-Star teams will take place the Saturday morn-ing of the State Finals. The committees will review the names sent in from the 16 District meetings held on June the 7th.

Each head coach, who is an IHSBCA member, will receive notification from the district rep-resentative informing him of the time and place of the meeting. A member of the schools coaching staff MUST be present at the meeting to have a senior player nominated for consideration for the 2015 All-Star squads. Each school is allowed to nominate up to three senior players for All-Star consideration.

COMMITTEE FOR SOUTH SELECTION

Chris McIntyre - New Albany(CH)

Mike Goedde - Evansville Central 4A Jon Gratz—Columbus East 4A Mike Harmon—Chatard 3A

Jay Malott—South Dearborn 3A Bill Cary—North Knox 2A

Tim Terry—South Vermillion 2A Brian Agnew—Borden 1A

Open—Open 1A(Contact Phil McIntyre)

COMMITTEEE FOR NORTH SELECTION

Steve Stutsman - Elkhart Central(CH)

Bob Shinkan—Munster 4A Brian Abbott—Huntington North 4A

Kevin Hannon - Knox 3A Erik Hisner—Whitko 3A Dave Neuenschwander—Adams Central 2A

Kris Holtzleiter—Southwood 2A Pat McMahon - Ft. Wayne Canterbury 1A

Jeff LeBeau—Tri-County 1A

***STATE FINALS MEAL*** Coaches—for those of you who are in attend-­ance at the State Finals, Brian Abbott will have $10 coupons available that are redeemable that day at the concession stands.

Coaches who would like to nominate a player for Academic All-State will have from May 15th through June 15th to do so on the IHSBCA website.

The following requirements must be met to be Academic All-State: 1. Player must be a senior in 2015. 2. Player must start 70% of games as a senior (or 25% as a pitcher). 3. Form must be signed by the high school principal and head base-­ball coach. 4. If player is a valedictorian, then he is an automatic member. 5. Player must have a score of 8 or above in the following work-­sheet: a. Player’s GPA ÷ School’s GPA Maximum x 2 b. Player’s SAT/2400 OR ACT/36 x 8 i. Use the higher of the two results. ii. If student has taken the SAT multiple times, use

the highest scores of each of the three sections. c. Add the GPA total to the higher of the SAT or ACT totals. d. If the answer is 8 or higher, the player is Academic All- State The link for Academic All-State nomination(s) can be found on the main page of the IHSBCA website (ihsbca.org) in the small naviga-­tion section below the main navigation section. When you open the link, the password you need is ACADEMIC - you must use all caps. You will then fill out the information, the link will do the calcula-­tions and then you simply need to submit it. Deadline to nominate a player for Academic All-State is June 15th.

Future Conventions It’s not to early to start thinking about getting out to a convention prior to the start of next season. Check out the ABCA and BCA websites for more information on their conventions and membership.

BCA - December 3-6, 2015 in St. Louis, Missouri

ABCA - January 7-10, 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee

OHSBCA - January 21-23, 2016 in Columbus, Ohio

IHSBCA - January 21-23, 2016 in Indianapolis

academic all-state info

They Said It!! - “They should move first base back a step to eliminate all those close plays.” ~ John Low-­enstein - “I’m glad I don’t play anymore. I could never learn all those handshakes.” ~ Phil Rizzuto - “They broke it to me gently. The manager came up to me before a game and told me they didn’t allow visitors in the clubhouse.” ~ Bob Uecker

Page 6 INDIANA H.S. BASEBALL NEWS Volume XXXXII ISSUE 4

Baseball in Indiana is alive and well at the college level. If you haven’t done so, get out and see a game, better yet take your players. It is great to get kids on a campus to see different facilities and to appreci-­ate the quality of play at all levels. Listed below are the win-loss records(overall & conference) for all the Indiana programs as of 5/4/15.

Ancilla College 11-23(7-15) Anderson University 28-11(19-8)

Ball State University 26-19(11-10) Bethel College 18-25(11-17)

Butler University 18-27(5-7) DePauw University 15-24(12-7)

Earlham College 26-12(15-11) Franklin College 17-23(10-17)

Goshen College 9-40(6-22) Grace College 14-31(7-21)

Hanover College 17-18(13-14) Huntington University 24-14(19-7)

IPFW 25-19(12-12) Indiana Tech University 29-25(19-14)

Indiana State University 21-23(6-12) Indiana University 26-19(9-10)

IUSE 37-18(13-7) Indiana Wesleyan University 24-29(13-15)

Manchester University 24-13(17-10) Marian University 16-18(8-7)

Oakland City University 15-22 Purdue University 15-33(6-12)

Purdue Univ.-North Central 23-23(19-13) Rose-Hulman Institute 25-14(17-9)

St. Joseph College 24-22-1(18-17-1) St. Francis University 16-36(10-18)

Taylor University 30-19(16-12) Trine University 18-22(13-15)

University of Evansville 26-19(8-10) University of Indianapolis 32-17(26-10)

University of Notre Dame 30-18(12-12) University of Southern Indiana 26-19(21-15)

Valparaiso University 18-24(13-10) Vincennes University 23-19

Wabash College 12-26(4-15)

PLAYER SPOTLIGHT—KEVIN PLAWECKI Kevin Plawecki made his MLB debut for the New York Mets on April 21, 2015 against the Atlanta Braves and went 2-4 with 2 runs scored. Kevin graduated from Westfield High School in 2009 where he was honorable mention All-State his senior year. In 2012 as a member of the Purdue Boilermaker squad, Kevin was named the Big Ten Conference Player of the Year and the Most Outstanding Player of the 2012 Big Ten Conference Tournament. Following his jun-­ior year, Kevin was selected in the 1st round (35th overall pick) by the New York Mets. After spending his first two seasons of at the Single A level, Kevin split time between AA and AAA during the 2014 season, hitting .326 and .283 respectively. In 2014, Kevin was selected to play in the All-Star Futures Game. On April 25th Kevin become the first play-­er to hit his first home run in a Mets-Yankees Subway Series Game.