Championship July

​Congrats to all the champions in the past few weeks. Championship July is upon us and is not disappointing so far.  We look forward to the next few weeks and the final National and State rankings with the PGI, USSSA World Series, TBR World Series, PBR World Series, Motor City Classic, and other highly competitive tournaments across the country. There will also be exciting announcements for TBR that we will release in August!
Championship July!
Championship July is upon us. The pinnacle of the season is here and congrats to all those teams that challenged themselves and competed at a high level all season.  Many of the large more competitive tournaments are played in July, hence the name “Championship July”. The PG world Series, TBR World Series, PBR World Series, PGI, USSSA Worlds Series, ABC, and many more high-level tourneys are yet to be played. We will take the outcomes from these high-level tournaments into consideration for the final National and State Rankings. You can also send your final case for State and National rankings here, and include your season resume for consideration here. Remember to be very detailed and not be misleading with your input.
Going Back to Cali
After a two -year Hiatus, the USSSA International World Series was played and did not disappoint. These California teams consistently compete for the top teams in the Country, year in and year out. In 9U, MVP Barberena won the championship and hope to carry the momentum in to the PGI. We fully expect a rematch of them and Southern Finest at some point. Incredibly, at 9u Cali has 4 of the top 15 Nationally Ranked teams. At 11u, Reed Johnson Baseball Academy won the championship to move up to #5 in the Country.
PG World Series
The PG World Series at 9u and 12u, as expected, had excellent competition from top to bottom. At 9u, the Kennesaw Generals took down the championship after a narrow victory in the quarters against Motor City Hit Dogs Stout. Great job boys! At 12u TX/FL Canes elite bested a tough East Cobb Astros Orange team in the finals.
Grade Exemptions
Travel baseball is a crazy world. PG has just moved to only allowing two “age-appropriate kids” per roster, after the practice of “Grade Exemptions” was getting out of hand. We think this is a great move and would like to commend PG for making this tough move.  This should curb teams that are clearly taking advantage of a loophole. The champions of a recent major tourney not only boasted kids from 10 different states, but 6 of the kids were not age appropriate. The team was taking advantage of the grade exemption allowing kids a full year older to play. I would like to congratulate all the teams that competed any teams that took advantage of this exemption in the last few years, your kids will only be better for doing so. Obviously, a lot of egos are/were at play here.
The next few weeks will be full of great action. We look forward to the rest of championship July, which will have a large impact on the final rankings.