Interesting article about the MLB draft and Mississippi.

[studentdawg87]

I thought Mississippi produced more talent than we do.

http://www.perfectgame.org/Articles/View.aspx?article=5653

 

[57stratdawg]

<span class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -9pt;">

Though only five of
the state’s top 25 college prospects (see attached follow list) attended
Mississippi high schools, the state’s prospering high-school ranks can
take some solace in the fact that the top three college
prospects—Vollmuth, along with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Mississippi State righthander Devin Jones</span>
and Ole Miss righthander David Goforth—did attend Mississippi high
schools prior to enrolling in college.

</span>

 

[57stratdawg]

Woodruff might make it campus.

 

[Todd4State]

than any other state- just like football. Here again, remember our population is small compared to most states.

That was a great article- gave credit to Ron Polk and the 1985 MSU baseball team for raising baseball awareness- that team had more impact on baseball in Mississippi than any other team in the state's history.

What hurt baseball in Mississippi was integration. The writer maybe wanted to steer away from that- but what happened was schools started to integrate and baseball in schools started to get cut. That's how my Dad ended up at MSU- he was from Missouri and there weren't enough players in Mississippi to go around. My Dad's roomate was from Arizona.

As time moved on, of course teams started back. Coach DM Howie had his St. Joseph's team going pretty good- and they played 20 games, which was a big deal at that time in Mississippi. To me, high school baseball in Mississippi really didn't start it's "modern era" until 1980.

We do seem to be behind some of the other states in terms of development, but we're also making strides. The talent is there, but it is usually pretty raw. He also mentioned the JUCO's being behind- he's right about that. The problem is there aren't enough good players to stock the JUCO's- it gets really thinned out. All of the good players end up at State, Ole Miss, USM, Delta State or go pro. Meridian is the only really good JUCO baseball program in the state- and they hurt the other JUCO's because they can get players from all over the state because they are D-I. The other JUCO's are D-II.

We're kind of unique as a state because we have some very good D-I teams. Really, in a perfect world, we would be able to redshirt everyone and have them for five years- see Demarcus Henderson and Hunter Renfroe, but we can't do that because the MLB draft would pluck them up after their sophomore year.