St. Louis Metro Collegiate Instructional Baseball League
| Sport | Baseball |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1979 |
| CEO | Bob Totterer |
| President | Marty Stein |
| No. of teams | 8 |
| Country | United States |
| Most recent champion(s) | Wildwood Dodgers (2015) |
| Official website | Official site |
The St. Louis Metro Collegiate Baseball League, also known as the Metro League, is a collegiate summer baseball league in Greater St. Louis. The league was originally founded in 1979 by college and high school baseball coaches along with professional scouts.
Ozzie Smith is the league's Honorary Chairman. Mr. Smith is a first ballot member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and holds 13 Rawling's Gold Gloves and had 15 MLB All Star appearances. In honor of Mr. Smith, his uniform number "1" has been retired by the league.
The league is a member in good standing with the National Amateur Baseball Federation (NABF) with the winner of the league playoffs qualifying for NABF post-season play in August. The Metro League has won 3 NABF National Championships in 2003, 2013 and again in 2015. That is no accident. The Metro League takes pride in its highly competitive level of play, season schedule and playoff structure.
The St Louis Metro League is the only NABF sanctioned college aged program operating in the St. Louis, MO area and plans to host the National Championship in the coming years.
Metro Collegians Instructional Baseball League was formed in 1979 by ex-professional baseball players, Major League Baseball scouts, and area college and high school coaches with the intent to instruct young college-age men key elements of baseball.
Two ex-Major Leaguers will be coaching for St. Louis Metro Collegiate Baseball in 2016. These being Ken Reitz and Lonnie Maclin. Maclin being from St. Louis, also played in the league as a college student/athlete at St Louis Community College/Meramec. He's now come back to support the league that helped him reach his goal of playing professionally. Reitz was an All Star 3rd baseman and Maclin was an outfielder during their playing days.
Because of the league's outstanding long term reputation and high level of play, many professional players have sent their sons and grandsons to play in the program. Those include; Stan Musial, Ozzie Smith, Jack Clark, John Costello, Andy Benes, Mike Shannon, Scott Terry, Todd Worrell and Mike Matheny. There are many other notable alumni, including current Assistant General Manager of the Oakland A's, Dan Kantrovitz.
Notable alumni
Hundreds of St.Louis Metro Collegiate alumni have gone on to play professional baseball, with 20 of them making it all the way to the Major League Level. The Major Leaguers include:
- David Freese
- Justin Hampson
- Scott Bailes
- Brian Boehringer
- Joe Boever
- Mark Buehrle
- Scarborough Green
- Mike Henneman
- Lonnie Maclin
- T.J. Mathews
- Bill Mueller
- Al Nipper
- Bryan Oelkers
- Robert Person
- Cliff Politte
- Kerry Robinson
- Dave Silvestri
- Donne Wall