New College Tourney Latest Effort By MLB To Push Amateur Baseball

MLB in February will hold a newly created college baseball tournament involving some of the top programs in the country, part of an ongoing effort for the league to work more closely with amateur levels of baseball. The new MLB4 tournament will involve Vanderbilt, Virginia, TCU and Cal State-Fullerton playing six total games from Feb. 15-17 at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick in Scottsdale, Ariz. The event, which will be shown on MLB Network and MLB.com, ties into what is traditionally the opening weekend of the NCAA baseball season with multiple tournaments occurring around the country. To that end, the league will also hold its Andre Dawson Classic that same weekend at its New Orleans MLB Youth Academy featuring eight other college teams, seven of which are from HBCU programs. Cal State-Fullerton is the alma mater of MLB Exec VP/Baseball & Softball Development Tony Reagins, who will oversee MLB4.