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Online now: 3 members: Fresh, TABLE SETTER 11, Z Man; 105 anonymousDiscussion: Classic Spring Training Comments
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| March 16, 2010 surf88 Men's 65 1000 posts | Classic Spring Training Comments I recently returned to Colorado and wanted to say how much I enjoyed participating in Curt Hollis' "Classic Spring Training" camp. I was sore for two days afterward and smilin the whole time. It was great to work out and meet new friends and see old ones. I'd like to hear from some of you guys when you have time and I'd like to hear ideas that you may have to make CST even better. Curt welcomes the feedback. I plan to go back and I hope that more players from the west will attend in the future. We spent three days shaggin balls, bp, runnin bases, scrimmage games and a banquet with good food and prizes. Thanks Curt and the entire staff!! Ed Andrews ed@ewandrews.com |
| March 16, 2010 surf88 Men's 65 1000 posts | PS. I hope that all of you guys have a safe and productive tournament year ahead! Ed |
| March 17, 2010 BruceinGa Men's 70 3233 posts | My complaint would be that we had too many on each field. In my opinion each field should have 20 campers, maximum. Other than clearing the underbrush beyond the fences :), no other complaints. Tomorrow will my our first day at Softball Mag's ST. We only have 70 campers on a 4 field complex. Two of the fields will have two pitching machines going at once so that we effectively will have 6 fields for 70 campers. |
| March 22, 2010 BruceinGa Men's 70 3233 posts | I've just returned from the Softball Magazine Spring Training in Cocoa Beach, Fl. I'd like to offer an overview and comparision of it to the Classic Spring Training in Jacksonville. CST had over a little over 150 campers on 4 fields, SMST had 70 on the equivalent of 6 fields. At CST you could hit from 8:00am until late at night. SMST had hours 10:00am until 5:00pm. The reason for it is they had Softball Magazine employees setting up and taking down tables, screens, balls, pitching machine, etc. CST cost $100 while SMST cost about $285. CST holds a raffle at their banquet and many campers win bats, gloves, hats, etc. SMST had a banquet where all campers receive a bat bag, hat, tee shirt and bat. Not all bats and bat bags were high end but some were. I found that the CST campers were from almost all areas of the US and while SMST had campers from 17 states and Canada, they had large groups from the Chicago area and also NY,NJ and Md. It's hard to say which one is better or more worth your money. Both had pros that were willing to help with your swing, both had great weather this year, both had their hr derby, base running contest, SMST had a base hitting contest and both had a great banquet. SMST had a free breakfast the first day, lunch catered each day and free beer at their banquet. SMST had about 100 bats from Combat, Miken, TPS, Easton, Worth, Demarini and Reebok. I almost forgot, both had their "characters". This was evident Friday evening at the karaoke bar!!!! I'll leave it up to you but you definately should try both before deciding. I'll probably do both again in 2011. |
| March 22, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | bruce were the 100 bats demo's or did they give them away. |
| March 22, 2010 BruceinGa Men's 70 3233 posts | Bob, the 100 bats were demos. They didn't have any senior bats except for one that Jeff Hall had, a Bass. This was the pink one (breast cancer one). I believe it was a senior, marked 1.20. They said next year they would like to have a senior softball mag spring training. |
| March 23, 2010 surf88 Men's 65 1000 posts | Bruce, I can remember when there were 100 campers at the CST but as you know, a good thing becomes ever more popular and more campers want to attend and be part of it. Perhaps you have some positive suggestions relating to the complaints? Maybe they can maneuver into a 4 day camp. Two days for the younger players and two days for seniors. Just thoughts. Ed |
| March 23, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | curt was saying sunday(last day of CST) that he may have to move it to daytona beach to get a bigger complex,for next year. |
| March 23, 2010 #6 Men's 60 1173 posts | mad dog, Good seeing you in Georgetown, you would know I would have a bad game against you , oh what the hell. Was fun, see you in BAYTONW ? |
| March 23, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | u did,your teammates said it was one of your best games.LOL good to see ya KR.sorry to see us get rained out sat and sun,but at least we got some games in friday.prolly see ya in baytown,we are going to mustang in 2 weeks also. |
| March 24, 2010 chollis 81 posts | Hey Ed, Thanks for the post! Bruce, thanks for the comparison. Let me help you out a bit with the numbers though. We had 118 campers at this year's event, not 150. Counting campers, wives, guests, etc we had 162 people in the banquet. We had 23 campers schedule to go to the prison game on Friday morning but the prison didn't get back to me until late Thursday so only 9 made the trip adding 14 more campers to the field. I will agree, it was crowded. More so on the senior field than anywhere else. I've investigated the Daytona area field and they would work fine, except the field fees are $200 per field per day and that is just too high. It would cost an additional $24 per camper for us to move to Daytona. Keep in mind, this is a non-profit event. The expenses are divided up among the estimated number of campers to determine the entry fee. Despite the bad economy and even with a drop in sponsors this year, we managed to give-away a CST record of 20 bats, all high end composites, except 2 Worth EST's. In addition, there were other lower end prizes. Bruce, I'm interested in how they get an equivalent of 6 fields out of four? Are they hitting two groups a field on a couple of the fields? If so, how did that work out? In your opinion, did this increase the risk factor for injury? I'm really interested in your opinion on this! The fields were open to the campers for 35 hours over the four days. Yes, they were crowded more so Friday than I would have liked but I don't think anyone went home lacking swings. It looks like we will be staying in Jacksonville next year. I'm happy with the field facilities and the Holiday Inn and Denese Buzzy really did an excellent job on the banquet this year. Thanks again for the information Guys! curt |
| March 24, 2010 BruceinGa Men's 70 3233 posts | Curt, I forgot that you deleted some names from the 150 total, my bad. I just remebered counting 33 on the field that I was hitting. SMST had two fields with two pitching machines on each. Two more fields for live bp and games. The guys feeding the machines were 99.0% enclosed. Since I doubt CST will get 4 pitching machines care must be given to protect the two live pitchers on the same field. I don't know if that can be done. The last couple of days we didn't have shaggers on those two fields, we had two groups of about 5 hitters, each hitting 5 pitches. Once the balls (about 1000)were gone all 12 of us would pick up the balls. There weren't any low end prizes given at SMST. They did draw names for one paid entry for the 2011 event as well as about 5 $50 discounts for the 2011 event. I like you decision to stay in Jax. I can't say one ST was better than the other, each was better in its own way. |
| March 24, 2010 mad dog Men's 65 4191 posts | hey curt great job always enjoy CST,even if i don't win anything.LOL what about a 2 or 3 field complex to add to ringhaver,that might be close by.i know its a pain to have fields to look after,just throwing it out there to see if it could float. |
| March 24, 2010 chollis 81 posts | Thanks Bruce, good info there! Yea, we always lose about 15% on the list when it is time to pay. LOL. I have considered adding Drew Park to the event but there are some issues to overcome. The campers wouldn't get to see everyone and then we need twice as much equipment. Maybe we could put the seniors at Drew Park. But the park has an issue as the parking lot surrounds the fields and hr balls land on cars and people walking in the park. Then I need to double up on field bosses and talk Randy into running a complex....etc. Right now, I'm thinking the thing to do is put a solid cap on the event and just keep doing it at Ringhavor. Its big enough!! c |
