Mamaroneck begins season ranked No. 35 by Baseball America
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Mamaroneck has generated quite a bit of buzz around here thanks to a roster that’s even more stacked than that of last year’s Class AA state champion. The buzz has spread, too. The Tigers have already earned respect nationwide before throwing a single pitch or lashing a line drive.
Baseball America named Mamaroneck No. 35 in its prestigious rankings of the nation’s top 50 teams. In the northeast, only Don Bosco Prep of New Jersey (#6) and Malvern Prep of Pennsylvania (#21) are ranked higher. You can find Baseball America’s rankings here.
Another set of prestigious rankings, those found in USA Today, have yet to debut. Mamaroneck finished last season unranked nationally but fell as the No. 6 team in USA Today’s regional rankings.
However, Mamaroneck already received the No. 7 spot in Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, which ranked the Tigers No. 30 prior to last season. Don Bosco’s, last year’s top team, falls one spot ahead of Mamaroneck this year at No. 6.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 7:26 am by Josh Thomson. 
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Josh Thomson has done some of everything since joining The Journal News in
March 2003. He began working for the Gannett weeklies during the winter of
2002 as a freelance writer. He joined the daily staff soon after and has
since covered various high school and pro sports. Away from sportswriting,
Josh lives in Westchester and spends his free time either with his
fiancee, Sarah, or expertly managing his various championship-winning
fantasy sports teams. He's visited 21 major-league baseball stadiums and
insists that Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are the best by far. Josh
graduated from Carmel High School in 1998, then went to Boston University,
where, in 2002, he received a degree in communications with a minor in
history. 
Jake Thomases has covered baseball, hockey, girls basketball, and girls soccer for the Journal News since arriving in 2003. He previously interned at The Poughkeepsie Journal while attending Vassar College. He is socking money away under his mattress to buy the Knicks, at which time he will trade Jerome James to Cleveland for a ham sandwich.
Josh, this is a little off topic but… for the basketball season LoHud (after apparently buying into a stat service) convinced local teams not to use MaxPreps for game stats. Well it was a complete disaster. The new stat service was infinitely worse than MaxPreps and ruined that part of the game for those of us who like to follow the numbers.
You don’t need to be Bill James to know the importance of statistics when it comes to baseball. Please, I implore you, don’t make the same mistake. If you are required by corporate higher-ups to use the new service at the very least make sure that MaxPreps is not shut out from getting the stats as well. In addition, MaxPreps has a decent amount of stats from previous years and you know that history is a huge part of this game we love.
Again, please… until there is a new service that is on par with MaxPreps don’t shut the fans out.
Mamaroneck seems to consistently put out national level teams. How does a coach build a program that is consistently that solid every single year? What tips do any of you have to coaches trying to build their own Mamaroneck Baseball team?
It all starts with Larchmont / Mamaroneck’s youth programs. The kids are taught the fielding positions and how to run the bases and record outs at the kickball level (age 4-5). Then on to teeball where they learn how to hit, field and throw. They then move on and up thru several levels of minor leagues before they reach the majors level (10-12 year olds). There the best kids are chosen to play summer travel at 3 different age levels with 2-3 teams at each level. These teams also compete in high level travel tournaments and end up playing 30 + games in the summer. They also compete in travel fall leagues. At age 13-16 they start Babe Ruth leagues at the recreation and travel level then onto high school where they have 4 levels of teams. It all could not be done without the loyal parent coaches and the boord of directors from the LMLL and LMBRL. Also Coach Chap oversees everything at all levels. He is actualy aware of talented 6 year olds in the system that have potential down the road. It’s the same for hockey.
The key really is keeping a consistent group together and having them play year-round, and on travel teams. Every once in a while, you’ll have a superior group of athletes which puts the team over the top.
I played baseball at MHS before this current group became varsity players but after the stellar 2003 team with Vasami (current minor leaguer, high school all-american who played at Notre Dame and Elon) Wilson Matos (played at Quinnipiac) and Peter Allen (Fairfield). We played together during summers and springs and that helped us a lot, but we didn’t have the skill or athleticism that this current group brings.
Hagan and McGovern are two of the best athletes to come through MHS. Benkwitt, Glasers, Mondshein and Klein are also fantastic athletes. This combined with the amount of baseball they play year round makes them nearly unstoppable. When you have a team where nearly everyone from a certain class (in this case the class of 2009) is recruited, it’s just luck of the draw.
April 7, 2009 – Suffern 3 Mamaroneck 2