East Cobb Baseball

East Cobb Baseball is a baseball program/complex located in the suburbs of the metro Atlanta area, United States. The founder and owner of the team is Guerry Baldwin. Every year, it holds a baseball tournament, and pulls in over a hundred and fifty baseball teams for ages fourteen and up. The program offers baseball from ages nine to eighteen.

History

East Marietta National Little League won the Little League World Series in 1983 and were coached by Richard Hilton. The majority of the players from that team joined the first East Cobb team the following year as 13-year-olds and were coached by Guerry Baldwin, who spearheaded the nationally renowned program.

The program was established in 1985. Russ Umphenhour, who is an entrepreneur, noticed Baldwin's success with his players and old club. This sparked the idea of building a complex for developing youth baseball players.[1]

Umphenhour bought a piece of land for 1.4 million dollars, which created the new 3-acre (12,000 m2) East Cobb Baseball facility (financing it entirely by himself). The project ended with a cost estimated at 9.7 million dollars. Baldwin got much of his coaching staff through experienced instructors from every level of baseball including the high school, college, and professional levels.

The Complex

The complex itself is a 30-acre (120,000 m2), eight diamond, multimillion-dollar facility complete with indoor and outdoor batting cages. The complex has meeting rooms for players, covered dugouts and living quarters for out of town players and families who sometimes spend weeks on the premises. It is located about twenty miles (32 km) away from downtown Atlanta. Every summer the complex offers opportunities for players from ages 7 to 18 to try out for their age group. The complex is home to 80+ teams including the East Cobb Twins, East Cobb Yankees, East Cobb Prime, East Cobb Colt 45's, East Cobb Tigers, East Cobb Rangers, East Cobb Braves, East Cobb Bandits, East Cobb Cubs, East Cobb Patriots, and Team East Cobb, among others. The "Top-Tier" teams at the complex are the Astros, normally composed of elite talent from the Atlanta area, as well as other states across the entire country.

Perfect Game USA holds over 60 events including tournaments and showcases on a near weekly basis throughout the Spring, Summer, and Fall at the complex and surrounding facilities throughout the Atlanta Metro area, with the most competitive age groups in the southeast, ranging from 8u Kid-Pitch to 18u. The most notable of these are the World Wood Bat Association (WWBA) National Championships, taking place over select weeks in late June/July, attracting the best competition in the country in the 14U, 15U, 16U, 17U, and 18U age groups.

Perfect Game USA WWBA National Championships

Players/Alumni

At the East Cobb Baseball Summer Camps, players sometimes play up to more than 60 games per summer.[2] These summer teams play in tournaments all around the country as well as at the complex. Braves scout Al Goez states, "When you look at an East Cobb kid, you're looking at a kid that has played so much baseball that his skills and mechanics are better than a kid, say, from south Georgia or from Florida that has not played that much."

Players that have gone through the East Cobb program include:[3]

References
  1. Glier, Ray (July 18, 2009). "Georgia youth baseball is big business". AJC. Archived from the original on October 9, 2012. Retrieved November 25, 2014.
  2. Simpson, Allan (October 28, 2001). "Ba/perfect game wood bat championship". Baseball America News. Archived from the original on October 7, 2012.
  3. "Pro Players | East Cobb Baseball". www.eastcobbbaseball.com. Retrieved 2019-01-03.
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