Stillman baseball hosts MLB Identification Tour

By WVUA23 Sports Reporter Jason Williams

Stillman College hosted the Major League Baseball “Identification Tour,” inviting young high school players from the Southeast to take part in a “very pro style workout.”

The Identification Tour focused on players that are freshman and sophomores in high school. in the class of 2026 and 2027. Attendees included campers from Atlanta and Columbus, Mississippi, along with some of the local prospects from West Alabama.

Senior Coordinator of Baseball Development Kindu Jones said the workout included: infield drills, outfield drills, batting drills, and even had some pitchers that they like in the bullpen.

According to the MLB press release the purpose of the program is “to discover baseball talent among underexposed groups, particularly African American and Latino athletes.”

“When it comes to the MLB ID Tour it’s a matter of us not only going to cities that are some of the more known cities but it’s also about going to the cities that don’t get enough exposure or enough light shedded on them for their baseball,” said Jones.

Paul W. Bryant baseball coach Dondrae Collins, who is a former Stillman player, had nothing but praise for how Major League Baseball runs its youth development program.

“Just to have a chance like I said a lot of kids don’t even get a chance to get looked at. The exposure was great,” Collins said. “The coaches and staff here were amazing. Just talking everybody up even with small things. As far as errors here and there it wasn’t anything bad they just said keep going man do a good job. so I think them hearing that from people that were at the next level already and that’s trying to get them to the next level means a lot.”

The MLB Identification Tour was created in 2018.  It started out with stops four cities but has increased to 18 tour stops across the country.