College Baseball:

The Inaugural Baseball Census Collegiate Summer League is just over two months away from delivering its first pitch.

The six-team (Arroyo Seco Sentinels, Ventura County Pirates, San Gabriel Valley Monarchs, Inland Empire Outlaws, Arroyo Seco Royals & Orange County Juice) league will play an approximate 30-game regular season (6/11-7-21) schedule.

The BCCSL will also feature an all-star game, and a four-team postseason bracket to crown a champion.

The games will be played at Brookside Park (Jackie Robinson Stadium in Pasadena), University of La Verne, the Glendale Sports Complex, LA Valley College and Biola University.

There are spots available, but they are filling up quickly.

To contact the league or to make inquiries, you can send them an email to BaseballCensus@gmail.com.

About the Baseball Census Collegiate Summer League:

Owner: Nico Calderaro

Calderaro was the 2009 Miramonte League MVP at Bonita, and he was an all-SCC player in 2011 and 2012 at Mt. SAC.

After an injury ended his playing career, Calderaro got into the coaching profession, and he’s served as a JC pitching coach for more than a decade.

Co-Commissioner’s: Sean Fasig and George Vranau

Fasig played at Merced High School and Merced Junior College before transferring to the University of La Verne.

Fasig played for and coached with ULV legend, Scott Winterburn.

And then there’s George Vranau, a baseball lifer, who has dedicated so much to the game.

Vranau played baseball at Loyola Marymount (class of 1978), and he earned his Juris Doctor Degree (University of West Los Angeles) in 1984.

In 2003, Coach Vranau added a Masters’s in Physical Education (at APU) to his long and impressive resume.

Vranau was the head baseball coach at Daniel Murphy High School, Chaminade College Prep and North Hollywood High School between 1986-2002, and he won 307 games and five league championships.

He served as an assistant coach at Cal State LA, LA City College and LA Valley College.

Vranau was an MLB scout from 2007-2023 for the Reds, Pirates, the MLB Scouting Bureau and the Mets.

He also owns and coaches the Ventura County Pirates.

In recent years, area baseball players have competed in a few summer leagues, including the Sunset and Best of the West Leagues.

Vranau’s Ventura County Pirates and Bucs were among that list.

But they left after the 2022 season because, “I could no longer in good faith continue playing in the league and telling both the players and coaches that we were providing the best ‘next level or tier’ of play in Southern California. As such, we played an independent schedule in 2023, which included a weeklong trip to Wisconsin to play all six Dairyland Collegiate League teams.”

How will playing in the BCCSL benefit its athletes, according to Calderaro, Fasig and Vranau?

It starts by making the game as similar to the NCAA Division 1 experience as possible.

They’ll have a pitch clock, play all their games on college baseball fields, and the league will be a fixture on this site throughout the summer season.

Perhaps the most useful service this league will provide is the access to Armored Heat’s, Dr. Ryan Yoshida.

Armored Heat is an arm strength, mobility, and recovery program.

It was developed by the former Doctor of physical therapy for the LA Dodgers, and it’s the trusted arm care program for many big leaguers, top colleges, and younger athletes that are looking to gain an edge on their competition.

There were three main holes in arm care that Armored Heat wanted to improve:
1-Stop doing the same program day after day, week after week, and month after month.
2-Incorporate better scapular specific strengthening principles.
3-Design programs that correlated with the throwing workload for that specific day.

 

If you want some support with your arm care, they will introduce you to the best arm care app and program available that comes with video and written instruction for every exercise in your programming.

Armored Heat said it’s like having a personal baseball physical therapist in your pocket, and guiding you through their four programs:
– Pre-throw activation (prior to throwing)
– Full armor program (high workload throwing day)
– Scapular emphasis program (moderate workload throwing day)
– Recovery/mobility program (low workload throwing day)

Calderaro said they’ve also hired Dax Villalta to head the officiating crew.

I asked Villalta how his crew will be different than those in previous summer leagues.

Said Villalta: “One of the things that differentiates the Baseball Census umpiring staff from other two-person college summer leagues is the fact that all umpires who will work games for us this summer must have worked college baseball during the 2024 spring season. I go to great lengths to make sure our umps been vetted. We will not be using high school, youth nor men’s league umpires. I’m a firm believer that sports played at a high level require sports officials that can execute at the same level. Good baseball can be negatively affected by poor officiating due to the game becoming about the official’s inability to keep up with the level of play. By properly vetting our umpire staff, we hope to hire umpires that will contribute to and complement the game rather than those who will make games adversarial and contentious due to inexperience.

In my opinion, there a several deficiencies surrounding high school umpires: They have an over-reliance on being able to be bailed out by their partner, and they expect to become proficient without putting in the time in the off-season to develop as an official. They tend to expect someone to teach them the rules, as opposed to taking the time to learn the rules. College officials can get too caught up in wanting to mimic other higher-level officials, and sometimes they do that without the proper foundation in fundamentals. You can’t hide a good umpire is a common phrase on my side of the industry. This phrase alludes to the fact that despite the multitude of games across all levels where umpires are highly scrutinized, a good official will always stand out.”

Lastly, I asked Fasig to answer the following: What is the mission statement of the Baseball Census Summer League? Why should potential college players join this league? What do you think is the most important thing this league will provide its athletes?

“Our mission is to provide a competitive collegiate summer league with top talent, high level officiating, and top-quality collegiate level baseball fields in Southern California,” he said. “We believe our league offers an experience that will provide the amount of games and workouts necessary to go back to their respective colleges better than they left. With built in field workout days, our partnership with Armored Heat, and a competitive 30-game schedule, we feel this is the perfect formula for their individual success.

The most important aspect of our league is the player experience. We have made sure to cover all aspects of the collegiate baseball game experience, such as high-level collegiate umpires and the institution of the new pitch clock rules that will be implemented throughout the summer season. The players will be competing on some of the best college baseball fields in Southern California as well. We felt the need to put together a summer league based on the need for a quality experience for the players. We have always placed a high value on the players needs first. We have taken our experiences as players and coaches to be able to come up with a quality league design for each player to hone their craft.”