East Cobb baseball showcased in SI article

In a 4-19-10 Sports Illustrated article ("Legend before his time"), Tom Verducci profiles Jason Heyward, 20, "the most intimidating slugging prospect in years." Verducci also showcases East Cobb baseball, which figures into one of the chapters in Ball Crazy. As he point out so well, East Cobb has changed the youth baseball landscape in metro Atlanta and is upping the ante for programs across the country. 

In 2004, when Jason was 14, Eugene [Heyward's father] decided it was time to bring him to East Cobb Baseball. What Silicon Valley is to computer chips, East Cobb is to youth baseball: the heart of the sport's research and development. East Cobb began in 1985 when Guerry Baldwin, a Pony League coach in Marietta, thought the traditional youth league structure, in which kids of varying abilities get thrown together based simply on age and/or home address, was broken. He decided kids should play at the level of their ability—better players should play with and against other better players. He took a core of kids, most of whom had won the 1983 Little League World Series with a team from Marietta, and won four straight Pony League and Babe Ruth League national titles. "Eight of the players were the same," Baldwin says. "That's sort of what made East Cobb East Cobb."

The father of one of those players happened to be fabulously wealthy. To show Baldwin his appreciation, he gave the coach a state-of-the-art, 30-acre baseball complex: eight perfectly manicured ballfields carved among the stately pines of suburban Cobb County. The East Cobb program became a magnet for not only the best players in Georgia but also others from the Southeast (and occasionally farther) who would stay with local host families or in the host house on the grounds of the complex.

Since 1985 East Cobb has won 146 national titles and produced 150 pro players, including 21 drafted and signedlast year alone. It has grown to 85 teams for ages eight through 18. You might see as many as 600 scouts and college coaches at the complex at a time; they're engaged in the baseball equivalent of catching fish in a barrel. Among the major league stars who have played at East Cobb are McCann, Jeff Francoeur, Jeremy Hermida, Nick Markakis, Micah Owings, Matt Capps, Stephen Drew, Dexter Fowler and Gordon Beckham—and that doesn't include the 14 first-round picks in just the past three years. "It definitely changed the way baseball is looked at in Georgia," Baldwin says. "It used to be an afterthought to football. It's not that way anymore. A lot of the better athletes play baseball now, where 20 years ago they didn't."

The article goes on to say, "At ages 14, 15 and 16, Heyward, by his own estimation, was playing about 200 games a year: 30 high school games, 90 to 100 summer games with East Cobb and another 60 to 80 fall games with East Cobb." 

"At ages 15 and 16, his teams at East Cobb were 86-8 and 90-6, respectively, while traveling the country, usually playing against 18-year-olds and sometimes using wood bats. Baldwin says the fee to play on his team is $1,400, but a Braves official familiar with the program said costs can escalate to $10,000 per year. "Not true," says Baldwin. "I guess [it's possible] if you had two kids and the whole family went everywhere they went—I think that's what some people do—but not for one kid."