What was the highest level of baseball that you played?

[Frobby]

I thought it would be interesting to see how many posters played organized baseball and at what level.    I know we have at least some posters who played professionally or in college.   

[Legend_Of_Joey]

Uniform team before High School. Played all the way up from Tee Ball. I could throw and catch, just couldn't hit.

Stopped playing as soon as I got to High School and just played football. 1 All County selection later, I don't regret it much.

[wildbillhiccup]

Bottomed out in high school. Soft tossing left with a good curve, but very hittable fastball. 

[wildbillhiccup]

Just now, wildbillhiccup said:

Bottomed out in high school. Soft tossing left with a good curve, but very hittable fastball. 

*lefty

[Frobby]

My last organized baseball was a T-shirt league in the 7th grade.   I think I hit about .125.    My highlight was in the first game of the year, when our first 8 batters had been retired and I was hit by a pitch in an 0-2 count.    That started a big rally and we won that game.    It was all downhill from there. 

I’m a pretty good hitter in softball, and still play, but never had the reflexes to hit the hard stuff.   

[Nite]

One season of JuCo before real life needed actual attention and my shoulder started to just be done. I really feel if I had better coaching and a great push in the right direction from a training and practice stand point I could have been D1 talent. I just didn't have the self motivational drive or knowledge to do what it took, and I had NOTHING around me for guidance or the push. I just relied on natural talents which were pretty decent for my age IMO. 

[Redskins Rick]

21 minutes ago, Legend_Of_Joey said:

Uniform team before High School. Played all the way up from Tee Ball. I could throw and catch, just couldn't hit.

Stopped playing as soon as I got to High School and just played football. 1 All County selection later, I don't regret it much.

Im so old, we didnt even have tee-ball.

Started out coach pitch and then kid pitch.

[bobmc]

Second from right, top row.  I played for a Div 3 college team at Harpur College in Binghamton, NY (1961 - 65).  Now it's D 1, called Binghamton U and is in the America East (with UMBC).  I played SS the last 3 years.  We were pretty decent but being in upstate NY, had a very limited schedule.  Now they go on southern trips like real schools.  A guy  from my school, Jeff Montani, was actually drafted by and played for the Orioles minors about ten years ago.  He was a closer and fizzled.  I was a singles hitter with gap power with a strong arm.  I went to a NY Yankee tryout (Yanks were in Binghamton before the Mets) and was invited back.  None of my friends were invited so I hung them up, got rejected by the AF due to a knee issue, made my way to DC to work for Vets Affairs for 30 years, retired at 53 and never looked back.

 

Ed. Notes - one guy, Louis Giambalvo (second from right bottom row), became an actor and played in the Gangster Chronicles and had a tv show for a couple of years.  You see him as a character actor all the time

This guy actually played and is still hanging around (but he came long after I played)

https://www.mlb.com/player/scott-diamond-539438

[Dr. Unk]

ColecoVision. 

[stef]

I played what was called, at that time, in that location, Senior Babe Ruth (16-18) after my freshman year of college. Made the all-star team that summer after being passed over at sixteen and seventeen (no, I'm not bitter) but said "screw 'em," bought a Honda 750K and went off on a 3700 mile solo road trip out west. One of my better decisions.

My other notable experience was playing in a junior babe ruth all star tournament where I had the dubious pleasure of facing a pitcher named D. Mattingly. That team was operating at a whoooole 'nother level. We had not business being on the same field as that kid. And, we weren't bad.

[Punchandjudy]

D-3...I played semi-pro, the equivalent to Independent ball today made up mostly of ex-minor leaguers and D-1 talent till I was 27 or 28.

[Frobby]

53 minutes ago, bobmc said:

Second from right, top row.  I played for a Div 3 college team at Harpur College in Binghamton, NY (1961 - 65).  Now it's D 1, called Binghamton U and is in the America East (with UMBC).  I played SS the last 3 years.  

Honestly, you’re very recognizable in that picture.    You haven’t changed a bit, so long as you have a cap on!

PS -  looks like the pitching was a bit thin on that team...

[emmett16]

I played D1.  Played in La Liga de Honor in Spain for a few years after college.   Technically I was paid so it was professional, but the talent level was pretty poor.  Hilarious stories, though....got a yellow card once after striking out on two pitches.  

[Tony-OH]

I guess I fall somewhere between high school and college. After high school I joined the Army but kept playing. I first played in a summer college league in Virginia (Hit well over .450 and played SS/CF/P) when I was 20 and ended up going to an Orioles tryout camp at Memorial Stadium.

During that camp I made the cut from 90 outfielders to six that got to play in the mini game in front of the scouts. On the first pitch I saw in the game hit a ball into the front row of the outfield fence just next to the 309 ft foul pole, but unfortunately it was on the foul side. I ended up striking out when they replaced that pitcher with Mike Mussina's roommate from Stanford. I was asked to come back to a camp a few weeks later and was told if they liked me then they would offer me a contract, but I wasn't able to attend because the same day Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait and I became very busy and couldn't get off.

I then put together my own team for a Baltimore-area Men's League (MSBL) in which we won the championship in my one and only year of being a player-manager in that league. I then was stationed in Hawaii where I played in summer and winter leagues with winter leagues being a league where we played against college teams and minor leaguers in their offseason. The Hawaii armed forces decided to put together a baseball tournament and I made the All Army Hawaii team that lost to the all Air Force team in the finals. Funny thing was the All-Air Force team then put a team in that local winter league and they asked me to try out and gave me a waiver because I worked on an Air Force base. So I get to say I was the guy to ever be All-Army Hawaii and All Air-Force Hawaii. 

Got stationed in NC and didn't play for almost four year when I was assigned back to Maryland and found an Anne Arundel Men's 25 and over team to play for. Played on two teams then got stationed back to Hawaii. Didn't have time to play right away, but after returning from Afghanistan, I played on two more teams (with my new PRK eyes that were fixed by the Army before deployment I could hit better than ever). I also started doing associate scouting from the Orioles out there at this time.

Returned back to Maryland and after a year or two found a team in the 35 and over AA Men's League. After playing a year I put together my own team and we won the championship (that's two for two in managing championship teams if you are counting). Team broke up after the year (you have never seen politics until you deal with a men's baseball league) and I filled in some new players with the guys that stayed and we ended up making the playoffs again, but lost in the semi-finals (Making the first time I coached a team that I played on that we didn't win a championship).

After that year, fed up with the politics, my hitting had fallen off to the point I was batting myself 8th (think I hit like .250 with wood bats), and I wanted to focus on coaching high school and doing associate scouting stuff for an American League team, I "retired from playing.

Surprisingly, I don't miss it. I've come out of retirement two times to fill in for a team that needed a player so bad or they were going to forfeit, but after pulling my hamstring in my last game, it was clear father time had claimed another victim.

And if read this far, now you know way to much history of my playing days! Haha

 

 

[Going Underground]

Was Rod Serling on the team?  I was born not too far from there. Ithaca,NY.  Binghamton the home of merry go rounds.  Serling based the Walking Distance Twilight Zone episode on his home town of Binghamton.  His most personal episode.

I pitched in high school but was a wild lefty who could throw hard but not much control.