All-city, All-Area baseball

We'll have our All-City and All-Area baseball teams in Thursday's paper.

Here is an inside look at how the teams are selected.

We begin by asking for coaches' nominations. We also talk to high school coaches, pro scouts and, of course, the writers who cover the teams.

We separate the All-City from the All-Area with the city being Caddo and Bossier Parish schools and the rest coming from the outlying areas.

There is no set criteria for the team. Stats are nice but not always as important as you might think. For example, a pitcher with a losing record can still be considered if he has pitched well but just didn't have run support. Conversely, piling up big hitting or pitching numbers against weak competition doesn't help.

We've spent the better part of two days going over these selections. We feel fairly certain some people will not agree with our choices and complain. We also know that the team is the best we could put together - and yes we've run it by some coaches and scouts to see if we were on target.