TravelBallSelect's Top Ranked Organizations
(Lamorinda finishes in top 3 even though it is not a facility based organization)

 For years, mega-size and mega-budget training facilities have ruled the youth baseball kingdom.  But a baseball club from a small region in Northern California is making a name for itself on the national stage and is rattling the establishment with a low-glamour, low-cost, hard-work model that is resonating with our country’s economic times.

When the TravelBallSelect national rankings were announced in September, only Lamorinda Baseball had ranked teams in each of the 10u, 11u and 12u divisions.  The 12u Cougars, who were National Champions in 2008, finished the 2009 season ranked #3 in the country.  The 11u Monarchs broke into the top ten with a #9 ranking.  Lamorinda Baseball Club's newest team, the 10u Diablos, were impressive enough in its first season to finish at #11.  These rankings are no small accomplishment, especially considering Lamorinda isn’t located in one of the traditional hotbeds of youth baseball, like Florida, Texas, or Southern California.

It isn’t unusual for highly funded organizations like the Houston Banditos and East Cobb Baseball in Atlanta to have multiple teams competing for national championships in multiple age groups.  But when Lamorinda, with no properties owned or leased, a salary expense of zero, and an operating budget smaller than any local little league, became the highest ranked club in the country for these age groups, the youth baseball world had to stop and take notice. 

One has to wonder how this can happen.  After all, before the Lamorinda Cougars won the 2008 USSSA Elite World Series, no team from Northern California had ever won the event in any age group.  Now, a club without the fancy facilities its competitors possess is drawing the best talent from across the state and is competing with the best in the country across all age groups. 

“It’s because we are all about the kids,” says Lamorinda Baseball president Rick Rider, who also manages the Cougars and the Diablos.  “The Club doesn’t make a penny off of our own players.  We are only concerned with putting the best players on the field, training them to play at the highest of levels, and competing against the best we can find.  No one in the Club makes any money; we do it solely for the love of the game.”

In these tough times, this model is clearly striking a chord in the baseball community.  As Guy Tucker, manager of the Monarchs, puts it: “It is pretty simple, actually.  A family can either spend thousands of dollars to have a player try to learn this game in a batting cage and by taking grounders off indoor turf, or they can spend a small fraction of that and learn by facing the best players in the country.  Who in their right mind isn’t going to choose spending less for better results and a more fun experience?”

But don’t be fooled.  There is a lot of hard work and training that goes on, too.  Both Rider and Tucker have managed high-level baseball teams for years and run very long and demanding practices.  In addition, professional instructors are brought in regularly to add to the training.  But Rider is quick to remind everyone that all of this is done as cost-efficiently as possible.  “We really don’t want to create huge overhead where we have to charge an arm and a leg to the families in our organization.  Success doesn’t come easy, but it can come inexpensively.”

The results are hard to argue with.  In an overall Club ranking, based on TravelBallSelect’s final rankings, across all ages of youth baseball for 2009, LBC placed third (40 points) behind only East Cobb (57 points) and Houston Banditos (43 points), despite not even fielding a 13u or a 14u team.  In fact, in 2009, LBC had only five teams under its banner.  In contrast, East Cobb had twenty teams and Banditos had seventeen.  And even with the established clubs fielding so many more teams, only LBC, East Cobb and the Tri-State Arsenal in New Jersey had two teams ranked in the Top Ten for their age.

While the facility-based programs continue to struggle, Lamorinda continues to grow.  In addition to the Cougars, Monarchs and Diablos moving up an age group in 2010, the Lamorinda will be adding a new 13u team, the Nighthawks, and will be introducing the 10u Immortals to the national stage. 

There appears to be no end in sight, and this is just fine with Rider.  “Families keep knocking on our door and ours phones don’t stop ringing.  People are becoming more and more disenfranchised with the expensive programs.  We are happy to grow and to continue offering elite players a better experience.  We are very excited about 2010 and beyond!”