In 10 minutes, the St. Louis Cardinals will take the field for their first game of Spring Training vs. the New York Mets.  Pete Parise is not on the traveling roster for today’s game, so he will not be reporting to St. Lucie, but neither are a majority of the Cardinals pitchers.  Parise threw some batting practice yesterday and will use today as a day of rest.  Sometime soon, we will have the opportunity to see Parise face Major League batters.  Based on his Winter experience, there are a lot of people who cannot wait to see Parise’s stuff on the mound against the opposition this Spring.

Earlier today, Dustin Mattison of Scout.com looked at some of the best players in the Cardinals organization that played in the Winter leagues.  Right at the top of his list is Parise.

The player that helped himself the most had to be Pete Parise. Not only was he named to the 2010 Caribbean Series All-Tournament team but reportedly he added velocity to his fastball. His effort has gotten the attention of the team’s front office and he is getting a look this spring.

After a solid Puerto Rican League season, the right-hander saved his best for the Caribbean Series. In six shutout innings, he struck seven while not allowing a walk.

This week marked the beginning of college baseball for most teams I’ve been following. I was given a list of college players Dynasty wants to keep an eye on this season. I follow the players as their season progresses. I also get players added to the list from time to time as Dynasty receives information on these players. As I look at the list of stats so far, there are several players on the list that had a stellar opening week of the season. Hopefully they keep up the good work and will want to sign with Dynasty in the future.

My other major task this week was to find Pete Parise potential sponsors in St. Louis in the hopes that he lands on the Cardinals 25 man roster this season. Darren has started with a local company and my job was to add to the list of potential sponsors. Without the Internet, this task would be impossible, as I live about 1000 miles from St. Louis. I’ve found some potential companies and businesses; the only major concern is the economy and that they’d want to sponsor our guy.

A word of advice for current interns that are doing similar tasks: Don’t worry about finding sponsors related to the sport. For instance, if you are looking for a baseball sponsor, don’t worry about finding him a sponsor with a bat or glove manufacturer. Usually the agent, if he is established, has these contacts already. Focus your attention towards other sponsors such as local businesses or major brand names.

I’ve also been working on getting some information about a potential basketball client that was emailed to me this week. The individual is a college student who was writing on behalf of a college friend of his who wants to play overseas. He has recently left his third school in two years and does not want to sit out anymore. He would like to play immediately overseas. I took a look at his biographical as well as playing history. I also looked at his stats. There was not much to go on just from looking at this information. I am waiting on film to be sent to me from the individual so that Dynasty can further asses his worth as a client. This will give us a better look at whether this guy will be worth the investment. The only video that was found on the player on the Internet was a clip of him breaking a backboard. This intrigued me, but in no way determines what kind of player he is. Hopefully when the film comes in, it will show that he is worth it.

Either way, I am happy to be getting emails from individuals like this. If even one turns out to be a great client, it will improve my stock here at Dynasty. Client generation and contacts is a big part of this business. If I can show that I have enough contacts to generate worthy clients, it improves my chances of landing a job after graduation at Dynasty or an equally reputable company.

I get emails every now and then from people who read this weekly column asking my advice on getting into the industry. I want to stress that I am by no means “in” this industry yet. I was given the great opportunity to write for this blog and intern with Dynasty, but have not proven myself by any means. It takes time to establish yourself in this industry. I am in the process of learning so that one day I can say that I am “in” the industry. What I can suggest is that anyone who wants to learn this business should utilize resources such as LinkedIn and the many sports related groups that you can join via LinkedIn. Networking is huge in the business, and so far, I’ve found that these tools are great resources. I also recommend trying to obtain an internship of some sort with an agency, agent, team front office or sports marketing company. They are invaluable in building your worth in the industry.

With his fighting mentality, it wouldn’t be shocking to see Parise in St. Louis at some point this year. He will continue to develop and could be a candidate for the closer’s role when Ryan Franklin is gone. Whenever Parise makes the majors, few will be as proud as Heitner.

From a no-name company to representing Major League talent, it has been quite a journey thus far for Darren Heitner. And this is only the beginning. He will likely be in this industry for a very long time.

“I love every minute of my work,” Heitner said.

I started the week by making a player biography for a potential recruit. Darren was meeting with his mother this week to discuss the possibility of Dynasty representing him. My job was to create a dossier-type document filled with his information, stats and awards/accomplishments. The school website was very user-friendly in this regard. It wasn’t too difficult coming up with the information. The player seems very interested in our services, so hopefully when its time for him to make his decision, you’ll be reading a press release from us.

I also spent some time this week trying to find a potential basketball client a team overseas. I spent some time looking on www.eurobasket.com for teams looking for a guard. I thought I found a perfect match with a team from Italy. So far we have not heard a response from the team. Hopefully, it is partially due to the time difference and/or partially due to the club be occupied elsewhere and they respond soon. In the meantime, I am continuing to look for a team for the player.

My other major task this week was to think of ideas for Pete Parise’s website. Darren is in the process of creating an awesome webpage for Parise. I searched other professional athlete fan sites. I also looked at some presentations regarding social media and athlete websites. Finally, I also looked at what others on the Internet were saying about the overall quality of certain athlete’s sites. From this information, I came up with a list of things to consider adding to Parise’s website. I also made a comment or two about what to avoid. Darren gave me the link to the site this morning to take a look at it. It is still a work in progress, but looks like it will be a great site once finished. If anyone wants to take a look at it so far, feel free. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know and I will pass them along.

The final project I worked on this week involved college prospects. Much like what I am doing for high school players, I was given a list of college prospects to follow this season. My job is to keep track of them during their seasons and report daily to Darren on their stats and production. I am splitting this work with another intern. For the two of us, we have close to 30 players to watch between college and high school.

As the weekend rolls around, I’ll be tracking high school and college baseball players as their seasons start. I will also be looking for a team for a basketball project. I’ll also be starting anything else that comes up along the way.

Pete Parise is that kind of guy.  He wasn’t even drafted in the 50 round MLB draft.  How can you call that kind of guy a “prospect”?  But again, who cares?  He is down in Jupiter right now, fighting for an opportunity to start the season in Major League Baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals.  And while a year ago, many people did not know if he would even start above Double-A in 2010, some people think he has a chance to break camp in the Big Leagues.

Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is one of the head honchos who covers the Cardinals.  He lists Parise in his top 5 Cardinals prospects to follow this Spring Training.  Whether Parise is or is not a prospect, he is someone to keep track of leading up to the season.  As Goold notes in his piece,

An underrated righty who hasn’t been heralded in the multitude of prospect rankings, Parise earned a nonroster invitation the old-fashioned way — he earned it. The bulldog righty sports a quality sinker, and he seized the closer job with Pacific Coast League champ Memphis last season.

I started this week by researching contact information for potential sponsors in the poker industry. Online poker has become a lucrative business. Forming some kind of relationship with the individuals at these companies will be good for business. I am unsure of the capacity Dynasty will be using these companies, but I’m sure whatever capacity it is, it will be beneficial to both parties.

The work is about to pick up as the baseball season draws near. Reporting dates for pitchers and catchers are as early as Wednesday. As the season starts, I will be keeping track of Dynasty’s baseball clients and tracking their progress. I wish Pete Parise and the rest of the guys luck as they begin their season.

In addition to keeping track of current clients, I will be keeping track of a list of prospects. There are several high school baseball players on Dynasty’s list of prospects. My job is track them through their high school baseball season and report on their progress. It is important to keep track of young players throughout their high school years. Some players get drafted right out of high school, so the next few seasons for some of these players is very critical. I wish all the prospects good luck, as well, as their high school seasons begin near the end of the month.

As an aside, a good idea that Dynasty had was to find out the high schools of its current clients and then compare them to the high schools of the prospects that we are watching to see if any match up. Its a good marketing tool to a young player to say that we have signed one of his high school’s former players and he is in fact doing well. As I don’t want to take credit for something I didn’t do, another intern was assigned this task. I just thought it would be good to mention.

Finally, the other interns and I were given the task of trying to generate ideas for Parise as he begins his rise through the Cardinals organization. We are hard at work coming up with ideas as far as sponsorships, equipment deals, endorsements, etc. We are also hard at work trying to improve Parise’s Facebook FanPage. If you are not already a fan, go to www.facebook.com/peteparise and join Pete’s fan page. As updates to his fanpage are made, I will let you all know.

I will spend the weekend enjoying NYC and creating player profiles for a few potential clients that Darren will be meeting next week. I also have a few classmates at school that I need to contact again to get names for potential clients. Its been hard getting ahold of these people and getting them to give me information. But it doesn’t hurt to ask again. I also will be looking for some sponsors for the blog to see if I can generate any revenue for the company. If you can show that you can bring in money, it’s all the more reason for them to keep you around after your internship is over.

First, I’ve been watching the Caribbean World Series all week. Congratulations to Pete Parise on his performance for Puerto Rico so far. On Tuesday, he pitched a scoreless 8th inning, allowing a hit but throwing 8 of 10 pitches for strikes. On Thursday, Parise pitched the middle three innings of Puerto Rico’s 5-3 win over Mexico. He had another fine performance allowing no runs, one hit and striking out four. He also threw 28-38 pitches for strikes.

Second, I’ve also been doing a lot of research on potential clients this week. The clients were potential women’s basketball players. My task was to put together an analysis of what the player brings to the table. This was great experience. I’ve played basketball my whole life, so watching videos of highlights was not foreign to me. I watched videos of the different players to try and assess their playing skills. Numbers are one thing, but you don’t quite get the feel of whether someone can play unless you see them.

Numbers are important though. I looked up stats on the players and then compared them to what current professionals are putting up domestically and in Europe. I also assessed the strength of the conference the player played in to give context to the numbers. Hopefully my insights will help Dynasty make a decision on whether to sign these players or not.

I also researched a potential client in the MMA field and put together a dossier on her. This was interestingm as I do not follow MMA that closely. I did learn a lot about the sport from researching the fighter, though.

Third, I spent Wednesday doing research on Dynasty competitors as part of a competition analysis for Dynasty’s Marketing Plan that was to be compiled by Thursday morning. I didn’t get a chance to really start the assignment until around 10 p.m. due to class and other obligations. However, I didn’t have much to do on Thursday. I worked through the night, finishing at around 4:30. It made for a late night, but the important thing was that it was done and done well.

It was a good assignment for me to do, as well. I was able to do research on numerous sports agencies. I got a good understanding of the major players in the business, where they are located and what their strategies are. This will be helpful for potential job research at a later date.

In addition to this assignment, I also got a list of baseball prospects to keep an eye on this Spring. I’ll keep tabs of how they do for their high school teams and report back to Dynasty with the information. Hopefully one of these kids turns out to be a gem.

I also did my daily research on Dynasty clients to see what was happening with them. This past week, Dynasty client Mike Fagan won the PBA Dick Weber Open. Congratulations Mike. Also, basketball client Brandon Brown switched teams for the second time in two weeks, ending up at Kotwica Kolobrzeg SA of the Polish League.

Finally, I looked at a proposal that was given to Dynasty regarding a possible new Fantasy Sports product. Obviously, I cannot explain what it is (because of confidentiality reasons), but the concept had some potential. If it could be implemented without certain problems, the idea could take off. Again, I can’t say too much other than that. If the product ever makes it off the idea bloc or Dynasty decides to become a part of it, it will be unique to know that I got to read about it before the public.

As the weekend rolls around, I’ll probably spend it doing law school work, researching sponsors, and watching the Super Bowl. A foot of snow is expected Friday and Saturday, so there won’t be much else to do. A few of you have taken the time to email me and say hi. I appreciate it and enjoy talking to people who are in the industry or looking to get into it. If you have any suggestions on things to focus my posts on, let me know: rwebber@dynastyreps.com

Pete Parise continues to prove that he is ready to pitch in the big leagues this year.  Facing a very tough Mexico team yesterday in the Caribbean World Series, Pete threw the middle three innings of Puerto Rico’s 5-3 win. He had another fine performance allowing no runs, one hit and striking out four. He also threw 28-38 pitches for strikes.

The Bronx, NY native is taking care of business.  It is no small feat to go up against the former and current big leaguers on the Dominican Republic and Mexican teams and hold them to 2 hits in 4 innings along with 4 strikeouts and 0 walks.

The Caribbean World Series begins today at 2:30 p.m. on the beautiful island of Margarita, located in the Caribbean Sea just north of the Venezuelan coast.  The first game will be between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.  You can catch it live on MLB Network.  Pete Parise will be playing for the Puerto Rico team made up of the Mayaguez Indians, who knocked off first place Arecibo and then beat Caguas in the Puerto Rico Baseball League championship series.  Pete Parise has not just been sitting the bench as his team made the Caribbean World Series.  Instead, he pitched 6 games in the playoffs, notching a save in 9.2 innings and sporting a 0.93 ERA and a 1.03 WHIP.  Those numbers are reminiscent of Pete’s performance in the Pacific Coast League playoffs, when he helped lead the AAA Memphis Redbirds to their own championship.  All he did in the PCL playoffs was give up no earned runs and notch 4 saves.  This is Mr. Clutch.

MiLB.com is taking notice.  Yesterday, Pete Parise was featured on its homepage.  A screenshot is attached to this post, below.  Root on Pete Parise and the rest of Puerto Rico as they challenge some of the best players in baseball for a ring that is very valuable amongst baseball aficionados.