Posted on 07/15/2002 1:28:22 AM PDT by fineright
The Sarasota Cobras were out of gas after playing four games on one day at the Florida Amateur Athletic Union state baseball championship in Clearwater. This was their fifth game, on a Sunday in May. Five games starting at 7:45 in the morning and ending at 9 at night.
The Cobras, an amalgam of the finest 13-year-olds Sarasota has to offer, whipped eight other teams over three days to get to the deciding game. Cobras players had beaten two teams that had pounded them earlier in the year.
Now they faced a team called the Elite, a group of All-Star players assembled from the best of the best in Florida and Georgia.
This is the new wave of youth baseball in America. Put together the top young talent you can find and see who comes out on top.
This is not about local Little League or Babe Ruth baseball. This is about players with a future on the high school, college and professional levels. Cobras coach Brad Tremitiere said his players made him proud.
"The kids came out the first game and killed the ball," Tremitiere said. "Then we beat the St. Petersburg Stingers 11-2 in the semi-finals, the same team that had beaten us three times this year."
Then came the Florida-Georgia Elite, perhaps the best collection of 13-year-old ball players in the country.
The Sarasota Cobras lost, but the respect they gained will carry over to the national championships set to begin July 26 at Ed Smith baseball complex in Sarasota. More than 80 teams will find out who really is the best.
The fields are located at 12th Street and Tuttle Avenue in Sarasota and serve as the practice facilities for the Cincinatti Reds.
"We didn't have a perfect season, we went 22-9 and that should speak for itself," Tremitiere said. "My players work hard. They're coachable and have great attitudes.
What separates good players from great players is mental toughness. We work on situations. I try to teach my kids why they do what they do.
"We put the players in situations on the field where we set them up to fail so that in the future they will have learned how to avoid failing."
Evan Stobbs, a nearly six-foot-tall 13-year old pitcher/shortstop, will attest to the skills he's learned from Trementiere and two other coaches who have major league experience. "The coaches are great. Our new coach Brad teaches a lot of things he learned while playing in the minor leagues," Stobbs said. "The funadamentals they teach will help us later when we go to high school. Sometimes practices are just about fundamentals.
"We'll do good at nationals because we have a lot of good pitching, we hit the ball hard and we barely make any errors in the field."
Tremitiere teaches more than just fundamentals. He gives his team writing and reading assignments. "They tell me what their goals are, their strengths and weaknesses and how they feel they can help the team," he said.
"They all have to read a book called 'The Mental Game of Baseball' because anyone who has played the game knows baseball is 90 percent mental (and as Yogi Berra said, the other 50 percent is physical).
"I've coached kids who had all the talent in the world but they couldn't throw a baseball into the ocean unless you told them how. "There's a difference between an athlete and a player, an athlete gets by on his athleticism. A player may not have athleticism but knows what to do in a pinch."
"We've got well-rounded players. They're good athletes and they have mental toughness."
His idea is to develop players who will succeed later in their careers.
"We want to see them in two, three or four years from now to be playing for their high school teams, then play college ball, then play in the big leagues."
One of the team leaders, Pat Arnold, has another take on the Cobras. "We're like a big family," Arnold said. "We've done pretty much everything together. We stayed together wherever we play. When we're down we're all down and when we're up we're all up. "We get to compete with other players from all around the state and the nation. "For some reason, when you know you're better or the best, you know you can take on anybody and beat'em.
"Our coaches are great. On the field they work you tough, but still tell you to have fun."
Tremitiere pushes his players to the limit. He makes them run. And run. And run. There's a particularly medieval run game he requires them to do and it involves windsprints over a 30-minute period. You don't even want to know. They love it. Whatever makes them better.
Hunter Ovens plays outfield and catcher, but prefers catching because of the challenge. "I hope we win and I think we have good chance because we work together as a team and when we need a hit, we get it," Ovens said. "We're all good players. We're all the same. We're good."
Ovens likes baseball. But he loves football. Most of the Cobras are multiple-sport athletes. Ovens plays fullback and linebacker for the Sarasota Sun Devils Pop Warner League. He's a student a St. Stephens School and plans on playing football and baseball at Cardinal Mooney High School. Ovens admits he's the tough guy on the football team and hopes to play for Florida State University some day.
"I'm the smashmouth guy," Ovens said. "I clear the hole when I play fullback. "I like football best because I like hitting and football is a tougher sport. Baseball is a fun sport to play and a sport where you have to think about situations. In football, you just hit the guy."
Cobras first baseman Brian Dillon is more pragmatic about how his team will do at nationals. Trementiere called him one of the brightest kids on the team.
"We have a pretty good team but there's no telling how well we'll do," Dillon said. "We'll do the best we can. There are a lot of good teams out there."
Dillon loves science and world geography. He recently came in third at MacIntosh Middle School in National Geographic's Geography Bee. Still, baseball is at the top of his list of things to do.
"AAU ball is fun because we get to travel," Dillon said. "I like to play baseball, especially against good teams. It's hard to tell whether AAU is better than Babe Ruth. I only want to play baseball, anywhere I can.
"I like all the coaches. They're really nice and they teach a lot of things we're going to need when we go to high school and play ball."
Trementiere's only angst about AAU ball comes when parents try to interfere. He'll have nothing to do with their meddling.
"A lot of parents want to live their lives through their children," he said. "Parents can be the toughest part. I deal with them, but as a player develops and the player has a concern or problem, I want the player to come to me and talk. If he has a problem with not getting enough playing time, I want him to talk to me."
Tremitiere has some top-notch coaches helping him. Marty Brown is a coach with the Pittsburgh Pirates AAA minor-league team in Nashville. Scott Garrett is Tremitiere's hitting coach. Every Wednesday, Garrett instructs each player. Each one of them hits between 250 and 300 pitches. No wonder the Cobras can pound the ball.
No wonder AAU baseball is fast becoming the best in youth baseball.
My first attempt at journalism. Don`t go easy.
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