Every year -- usually in July and August -- we are asked by parents where their sons should play.

The answer is ... they should go to the organization where they will get the most innings on the mound or play the most.

Who knows the most about their sons going through elite ball ? What is a proper destination?

Maybe someone knows more than Neil Gross, but we doubt it.

His two sons Graham Skelhorne-Gross and Jeff Skelhorne-Gross each played four seasons of elite ball. Together they played for five different elite organizations, advanced to play at two different universities south of the border and a university in Canada.

In all. they played 21 years, including 2011 when both were with the Queen’s University Golden Gaels in Kingston, Canada’s first capital.

By Neil Gross

Father of two former elite players

I’d be happy to share what I learned as a parent navigating through elite ball. As you know, however, that was a long time ago. I imagine a lot of things have changed.

Here’s the gist of what I remember:

_ The elite programs varied widely in terms of their aims and objectives, size, stability, and resources – all of which impacted the quality of their player development.

_ Some of the programs were non-profit organizations, but others were for-profit businesses. That, in itself, didn’t determine whether a program was good or bad, though it was a factor in how expensive the program tended to be. The key question, however, was what they provided for the price?

_ Some provided quite a bit more off-season training than others; and more in-season games, in better quality Canadian leagues and U.S. tournaments, against much better competition (including, in some cases, exhibition games against U.S. college teams and newly-drafted pros at spring training in Florida) – thereby providing far superior showcasing opportunities.

_ Back when my boys played, there were very few instructors with really high-level playing experience. Hopefully that’s changed now, via more ex-pros and former college players who’ve returned home over the past 15 years. But we found it invaluable to get as much instruction as possible from guys who were players at that level – and those guys aren’t always in the big name programs. Sometimes they’re coaching in the outlying regions where they happen to live.

_ However, teams in outlying regions often struggle to maintain enough critical mass to remain viable financially. That was a perennial problem for folks outside the GTA.

_ On the other hand, the programs with giant rosters weren’t optimal for their players, who may not have received enough playing time to further their development and showcase themselves. So, the Goldilocks principle (not too big, not too small ... just right) was best as far as program size went – neither too big nor too small.

_ Also, as with any other youth sport, the fun principle should apply. Kids can’t learn or get better at anything if their coaches (or parents) put them under too much performance pressure or, worse, if they subject the kids to verbal abuse or humiliation. Thankfully, from what we saw, the latter type of inappropriate conduct was rare in elite ball – though it was notoriously evident in one program and persisted for far too long there.

Graham Skelhorne-Gross

Teams: Team Ontario 15U (2000), Canadian Thunderbirds 16U (2001), Hamilton Astros 17U (2002), Team Ontario 18U (2003), Niagara University Purple Eagles (2004-08), Queen’s University Golden Gaels (2010-12).

At Niagara: Batted .275 with 11 doubles, one home run, 25 RBIs and a .750 OPS in 76 games.

Current Occupation: Physician, senior surgical resident, Toronto.

_ All the programs sold themselves as pipelines to either U.S. college scholarships or pro ball, but few consistently delivered quality opportunities for their players. Most placed just a handful of their guys, and the scholarships were to low-echelon NAIA schools or sketchy two-year colleges.

_ There were only a couple of Ontario programs with strong, established connections to lots of NCAA Division I programs offering both good academics and athletics. Those programs had gained the trust of the coaches at those schools – and that was critically important for Canadian players to get scholarships there. In those programs, all or nearly all the kids got scholarship offers, and some got drafted.

_ One program focused heavily on the draft and they had the most success of any program in getting players into the pros. But while that may have been great for the kids who were legit pro prospects, I wonder if it was accomplished – literally – at the expense of their other players. The program had a very large roster, and as I recall a fair number of their players wound up at JUCOs or didn’t go anywhere.

_ For players aiming to get scholarships to NCAA schools, it was important to understand that in NCAA baseball four-year deals and “full rides” don’t exist, and that for most players other than pitchers and catchers the cost of attending a D-1 university on a baseball scholarship may not be cheaper, or may not be much cheaper, than just studying in Canada.

_ It’s also really important to understand that at the end of the day your child may not get offers from schools that are a good match to his academic needs and capabilities. So, those schools might offer too little academic challenge, or too few subject areas, and a degree that’s not much use. Or the school might be too tough academically – making it impossible for that kid to maintain a high enough GPA to remain eligible to play.

_ And you need to appreciate that student athletes at U.S. universities are required to put in a huge amount of time training, playing and travelling to games. It’s like having a full-time job on top of full-time studies, so it’s very challenging even for kids who are strong academically.

_ Some schools provide their athletes with academic support, to help them manage the demands and get caught up on classes they have to miss because they’re away for mid-week games. Nowadays, I suppose, many lectures are available to stream online, so maybe that’s less of a problem, but it’s essential to find out what academic supports the school provides before accepting an offer.

_ We were able to get a lot of information about this, and about each school generally, by looking at the detailed university rankings published online by two organizations – one was “U.S. News & World Report” (which ranked hundreds of schools – many of them private colleges) and the other was “Kiplinger” (which ranked public universities). I don’t know whether those rankings are still done. They were goldmines of information for us.

Jeff Skelhorne-Gross

Teams: Team Ontario 15U, 16U (2003-04), Ontario Terriers 17U, 18U (2005-06), Ontario Youth Team (competed 2005 Canada Cup at Medicine Hat, Alta.), Canadian Junior National Team (Dominican Republic 2006), Binghamton University Bearcats (2007–10), Queen’s (2011).

At Binghamton: Hit .285 with 12 doubles, five homers, 60 RBIs and a .740 OPS in 128 games.

Current Occupations: Teacher, Limestone District School Board, head coach, Queen’s University.

Ultimately, our boys benefitted enormously from elite baseball – but that may have been because we saw it, primarily, as a means to teach them important life skills.

They learned the importance and the fundamentals of teamwork. They learned that high achievement requires sustained hard work, dedication, focus, discipline, sacrifice and careful time management. They learned that success generally doesn’t come without setbacks, and requires resiliency and perseverance – but also that dreams are long shots that may not come true, so you need to develop a Plan B.

In addition, elite baseball gave our guys extensive contact with a broad range of people – coaches, players and parents – whose life experiences were different than their own. This gave our boys opportunities to gain insight into other people’s realities. It also left them with an enduring network of friends and contacts across North America to enrich their lives.

The boys played elite ball for four years each but, haha, if I added together all the years they played elite and college ball it’s … 21 seasons – 12 for Graham, nine for Jeff – including one year when they both played for Queen’s.

About the cost of elite baseball:

As best I can recall, we paid roughly $3,000 per year for each son, including all trips to the U.S. and winter training program. That was fairly consistent for Team Ontario, the Canadian Thunderbirds, Hamilton Astros and Ontario Terriers. There was no cost for the Ontario Youth Team and the Junior National Team.

Several of Jeff’s friends played for the Ontario Blue Jays and from what we heard that program cost a fair bit more than the ones our boys were in, but I don’t know the specific amounts – nor do I know how the program costs compare today.

The elite league in Ontario was a wood bat league, and players had to supply their own bats. That added a wildcard to the cost – a bat might last for weeks, or it might break on its first plate appearance if the hitter got jammed or fouled a ball off the end. My boys each went through five or six bats a year.

Both boys received supplemental training from Rick Johnston, who was very generous with his time. I can’t say enough good things about him – but also about nearly all the coaches our guys had along the way, especially Murray Marshall (who got Graham his scholarship) and Dan Thompson (who got Jeff his).

Don’t know what else I can say to provide “more depth”. I’m happy to praise the programs our guys were in, because their experiences were very good. I can’t really evaluate the programs we didn’t get involved with.

Hope these observations are what you needed. We’ve always been grateful for the sage advice you gave us when Graham and Jeff were in the system. Glad to see you’re still helping others with their journeys.