Buzzsaws History

Our History - The Summit County Buzzsaws were founded in 2010 and we played our first season in 2011.  The team was founded after a group of parents from Hudson approached us to ask if we would coach their 13 year old sons.   Their son's were part of the Hudson travel baseball program, but they were left without a team in October, 2010 when the program decided to only have one 13u team.  Since travel tryouts were over, these players were left without a team for the following summer.

We have become more and more successful each season.  In our second season (2012), we went from one team to seven teams.  Some of the those "new" teams took their lumps on the field as we only had a limited amount of time to work with them.  But our returning team (14u) had a successful season, taking second place in our league and earning "runner up" honors in our final tournament of the season.  Our third and fourth seasons  (2013, 2014) were much more successful as we had players who had been with us for three or four seasons and several of our seven teams have competed in the finals of competitive local tournaments and did well in the Nations Baseball State Tournament.  We've taught these players all along that nobody cares about your record or stats when you are 13 years old and the only thing you take with you are your skills, work ethic and knowledge of the game.  There are no scouts at any of these games so your record is not as important as what you are learning.  

Now in our fifth season, we are poised to have our most successful season on the field ever as a program.  The final step of the developmental process is to learn how to win.  Winning without the proer fundamentals is useless but once you are able to executie the proper fundamentals, winning should be a by product of proper focus and executing correctly.  There are lessons to be learned by learning how to win.....mostly those lessons are about how valuable your fundamentals are.  A vast majority of our players from ages 12u through 15u Many of the players have been with us for 3 or 4 years now and the defensive fundamentals come more naturally.  We have pitchers who have been developed for several years and know how to pitch as opposed to just throwing fastballs past hitters.  

Our Name - Why did we choose the "Buzzsaws" as our team name?  There are several reasons we chose this name.  The first reason is that we wanted the team name to be unique and something that people would remember.  Secondly, we wanted a name that would represent defense and pitching.  So we considered names such as "leather devils" and others that depicted stellar defense as opposed to "The Hit Men" or "The Rocket Launchers".  In baseball, the term "buzzsaw" usually refers to playing a team that you really had no chance with on that particular day.  This is usually because of their starting pitcher but it also refers to their great fundamental defense.  The other team would say "we ran into a buzzsaw today".   At the younger ages, games tend to get out of hand with the scoring and the "mercy rule" comes into play quite a bit.  But if you really watch those games you will discover that most of the time it's not because of the winning teams hitting prowess, it's because of the losing teams inability to; 1) catch the ball 2)  throw the ball and 3) throw strikes.  As the boys get older, there aren't nearly as many mercy rule games, even in high school.  The boys that can catch, throw and throw strikes are extremely valuable as they get older and more skilled.  

Our Philosophy - From the beginning, the team was designed to be part of a developmental program.  Many of the players who have joined the program fall into two categories 1)  Players who are immensely talented but need direction, refinement and discipline; 2)  Players who are marginally talented but possess a passion for baseball and a desire to play in high school.  We typically do not attract the players who are bigger, faster and stronger than everyone else, even thought they should be looking for a program just like ours.  Think about it, if your son was the next Beethoven, would you have someone who has never taught high level piano "teach" your child?  No, you woud find the best instructor you could, even if there was an investment involved.  Sometimes these players are better because they happen to be older than the other players (6 months makes a big difference) or because they happened to go through a growth spurt earlier than other kids.  Unfortunately, many of these players discover that they are no longer bigger, faster and stronger than the other kids once they reach high school age and find out that their skills are lacking.  Often time, our students/players surpass those players who have been the star because their skills are more refined.  Our goal is to develop baseball skills through proper technique, correct repitiion and encouragement.  By coaching the kids into the season, there is an opportunity to make corrections during the season that are difficult to make with kids who leaving our training once the season starts.  The developmental process is a year-round process for many of our players.  This is not to say that our kids are training in baseball year round, as we believe that they should play other sports and develop their athletic skills beyond baseball.  But athletic training is a constant process so we have opportunities for the players to develop themselves athletically all 12 months of the year.  

Our Tuition

Our tuition is all inclusive of training and we do not require fund-raising.  About half of our tuition is to cover teams expenses (league fees, insurance, fields, umpires, tournaments, baseball supplies etc.) and about half is to pay our instructors and coaches and training facilities.