THAT’S THE WAY I SAW IT
The other night at a Wizards game, a man behind home plate was checking pitchers with his speed gun. We started talking and I found him to be very friendly. His name was Larry Chase and he is a baseball scout for the New York Mets. A scout has the distinction of being one of the few people in this world that are paid to watch baseball games.
Chase lives in Pearcy, Arkansas and is the area supervisor for the states of North and South Dakota, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. He not only scouts these six states for high school and college prospects but he is also assigned to the ‘pro-watch’ program, which involves checking players in the Minor Leagues.
Larry has been a scout for 18 years with the Mets. He has a background of coaching kids teams, especially American Legion. After looking at players in the Minor Leagues he will scout ‘Jay-Hawk’ teams (College League) and all sorts of independent and youth leagues. After November he will call on prospects and have them fill out applications and talk to them about the possibility of them playing professional baseball.
I asked Larry why there are so many foreign-born players in the game nowadays. I mentioned that another scout had told me there just weren’t enough prospects in this country. Larry stated this was partially true, as U.S. boys don’t play as much baseball. Many quit at age 14.
Sometimes Larry is away from home a month at a time. This was a very interesting and informative conversation with a full time NY Mets baseball scout.
That’s the way I saw it.
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