Hand-picked standouts from the teams of All-Star Academy’s Baseball Media Day Can it really be spring already? Those intermittent pings you’re hearing as you walk by the nearest high school campus seem to say that it is. Baseball season is upon us. Official practices for nearly all the Northern California sections will begin the first week of February, and we’ll have games just two weeks later. It’s go time. And to get into the spirit, we’re lending our support and taking part in the All-Star Academy training center’s Baseball Media Day from 7-9 p.m. on Feb. 12 at the Decathlon Club in Santa Clara. All-Star Academy’s Brady Austin organizes the event that brings together the coaches of 12 South Bay programs to talk about their upcoming season and expectations for various media outlets. “We feel it is important to support the efforts of our high school athletes and their coaches and to improve communication with our towns and communities,” Austin said in a press release. “Baseball Media Day is a great way to establish these relationships to promote the sport of baseball at the youth level.” The 12 programs participating this year include West Catholic Athletic League heavyweights, Archbishop Mitty-San Jose, Bellarmine Prep-San Jose, St. Francis-Mountain View, Valley Christian-San Jose and defending league-champion Serra-San Mateo. Also expected to attend are Palo Alto, Menlo-Atherton, Homestead-Cupertino, Mountain View, Saratoga, Santa Clara and Wilcox-Santa Clara. Each coach attends along with at least one selected player who they anticipate will play a strong leadership role on their team in 2013. SportStars wanted to find a way to honor those players — which gave birth to the Diamond Dozen. We asked each coach in advance who they would like to nominate for this preseason award, and have presented them here with a rather cool baseball card treatment. We’ll also be on hand the night of the event to present each player with an award recognizing their inclusion in the Diamond Dozen. We’re not the only one lending a helping a hand to this event. All-Star Academy has also picked up sponsorship help from kmvt Community TV, All-Out Baseball, r&b productions and Mizuno. And for those high school baseball fans living in the nearby area, you don’t have to be among the media elite to be a part of this event. It’s free and open to the public. Now, we’re off to buy us some sunflower seeds. Enjoy the Diamond Dozen and we’ll see you at a diamond soon. ✪
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SportStars™
February 1, 2013
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