We’re honored and thrilled to announce that one of the greatest pro ballplayers of all time, Ozzie Smith, will judge our HiCast Sports MVP Awards for Youth Baseball. Former MLB player for the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals from 1978 to 1996, Ozzie Smith set major league records for career assists and double plays by a shortstop, as well as the National League record with 2,511 career games at the position. He won the Rawlings Gold Glove Award for play at shortstop for 13 consecutive seasons (1980–92) and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 2002.
On November 5th, we selected the Top 25 Semi-Finalists for Best Offensive Play and Top 25 for Best Defensive from more than 4,000 highlights shared across our HiCast Sports Network of venues. On that day, the online voting phase of our contest began as we invited the general public to cast their votes for one or more of their favorite plays to help determine the Top 10 Finalists in each category. This Friday, November 30th is our final day to cast votes, and on December 1st at 12:00am, the Top 10 Plays in each category with the most votes will go before our judge, Legendary Hall of Fame Shortstop Ozzie Smith. He will award our Top 3 Winners for Best Offensive Play and Best Defensive Play on Monday, December 10.
This contest wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of our partner, Rawlings Sporting Goods. They’ve provided an incredible lineup of prizes for our winners including new 2019 Quatro Bats for the three Best Offensive Play winners, custom gloves for the three Best Defensive Play winners; new Mach batting helmets for the finalists; and sackpacks for all semi-finalists.
