Canes Baseball will have some of the top talent in the country wearing its uniform this year, just as it has since the beginning. Twenty years ago, in eastern North Carolina, President and CEO Jeff Petty started Canes Baseball with two missions – to help young talent in the area gain college scholarships and to win ball games.

Since that first team, which played in its first tournament in Orlando, Fla. in 2005, there have been over 4,250 players come through the organization and earn the opportunity to play college baseball.

Talented players have brought great success to the Canes uniform, whether in the old school orange and green, or the current look of black and gold. The Canes have won 16 Perfect Game national championships – 12-time champs of the WWBA in Marietta, Ga.and four-time championships in Jupiter, Fla. Other tournament titles are too numerous to list.

“I really wanted to help kids get college scholarships, I wanted to be competitive and wanted to win,” Petty said, recounting the early days of starting the Canes. “I wanted to help kids first in a way that was team-focused and not individually focused.”

It started when former high school teammate, Jeremy Bullock, saw Petty over Christmas and invited him to put together a team to play in that Orlando tournament, the AAU 16U national championship at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. Bullock, who was president of AAU Baseball, awakened a calling in Petty, who pulled kids from eight local high schools to build the first team.

“I looked at every 16 year old I saw that was talented, tried to put them all together to go down and play in that tournament, and I thought that was a one-time deal,” Petty said. “I didn’t know that was going to turn into a regular thing. We put that team together to try and compete in that one tournament, but all those guys wanted to stay together in the Fall, and it never stopped from that point forward.”

Petty and the Canes went undefeated to the final game before falling to Chet Lemon’s Juice in the championship.

The 16U team grew quickly and the next summer, Petty moved back to his hometown in Virginia where he teamed up with Mike Covington to put together the next roster. The beat the proverbial bushes and put together a roster that would be competitive against teams from across the country.

“In 2006, we went down to East Cobb and we went toe-to-toe with East Cobb,” Petty said of his 16U squad. “We got beat, but we knew we could hang with the best. In 2009, we won the whole thing and then we won it all again the next year. It took a couple years to know we could hang with the big boys, but then we knocked the door down and haven’t looked back since.”

 

To go along with all of the college scholarships and trophies, the Canes were attracting the best players. There have been 419 players drafted, including 63 in the first round of the MLB Draft. There are 55 players who have already gone on to play in the Major Leagues, and thatnumber keeps growing rapidly.

What a remarkable run it’s been so far, and we look to continue it this summer with an incredibly talented group of players from all across the country. Dan Gitzen, General Manager of the Canes, is in charge of putting the 17U roster together each year. He’s worn many hats over the years, but has always built championship-caliber teams, regardless of age group.

The organization has grown tremendously since Petty started it. There are over 150 coaches, program directors and full-time staff members from the 7U to 17U level with programs from coast to coast and in Canada.

“The thing we take most pride in is the message we deliver to these kids on development,” Gitzen said. “A lot of people are so caught up in individualism, achievement, awards – when am I going to get my scholarship, my NIL money? Our kids earn all of that stuff, but we always try to stay true to our roots to help them develop, compete and give them a platform against the best competition in the entire country. It takes a special type of player to want that. There are really good baseball players who don’t play for us, but we’re always looking for a fit, and we’ve stayed true to that. It’s absolutely a different brand of baseball.”

An organization can’t thrive like the Canes without core values and principles. There has to be a standard on the field and off the field in order to bring about so many college scholarships, so many trophies and so many draft picks.

“I turned on an MLB game the other night and we had four guys playing,” Petty said. “I take a lot of pride in that. But the biggest thing, when they were here, they all bought into the team system.”

When there’s consistency in message and belief in opportunity, that’s what brings the top players from the country to the Canes. Whether it’s Corbin Carroll from the northwest corner of the country in Seattle, Wash. or Xavier Edwards from the shores of sunny south Florida, it’s the Canes Baseball reputation that creates the desire to wear the black and gold.

“Being a part of the Canes is one of the best decisions I made as a younger player,” Los Angeles Angels outfielder and 10th overall pick of the 2017 MLB Draft Jo Adell said. “One thing that is very important is the commitment to winning. This organization does nothing but put winning teams out there and the expectation to win every game is the driving force to get you prepared for college and professional levels.”

But the reputation built now has to begin somewhere, and it started with some great players in North Carolina, and then into Virginia. Soon, the Canes would mine South Carolina and Maryland before branching out even further.

One of the very early players to put on a Canes uniform was pitcher Seth Maness, who was just a short drive down I-95 in Southern Pines, N.C. He got hooked up with Petty in the Fall of 2005 and was quickly a star on the team, ultimately going to play his college baseball at East Carolina.

Maness became the very first player from the Canes to play in the MLB, and Petty was there to support him at each step.

“With Jeff, he doesn’t just show up,” Maness said. “He gets to know every single person he coaches and maintains those relationships over the years. On a personal level, it’s more than baseball with the lessons he’s trying to instill. He’s preparing these guys for what it’s going to be like at the college level.”

It all goes back to relationships. It doesn’t matter if a former player is a big leaguer or has hung up the spikes altogether, it’s “once a Cane, always a Cane,” according to Petty. The players feel that, because he’s at weddings about as often as he is MLB games to support those who have gone to battle with him.

“He’s always cared for the players. He took me to a lot of college visits when my parents couldn’t,” Jake Cave, who played six years in the MLB, said. “He has also always told the players and parents the truth, and that’s something that’s tough to find these days at any level, including the Major Leagues. The continued success of the organization is 100 percent because of Jeff and the people he chooses to help him.”

Cave wasn’t too long after Maness, playing on the 2009 squad. Both players were selected in the 2011 MLB Draft with Cave, who was on Petty’s first championship team, going in the sixth round and Maness in the 11th. They were two of the first 11 players from the Canes to ever be picked.

There have been more than 400 others selected since that time.

“The biggest thing I remember from my time as a player is the talent level,” Maness said. “I played with a bunch of local guys and then got on with the Canes. Being around those guys, the same competitiveness level and wanting to win, it makes you realize that maybe I’m not as good as I think I am, and you take things from others and watch them.”

There’s more to it than just professional baseball. First, there’s winning with the Canes.

 

Winning doesn’t come without practicing. Even the best players in the country have to stay sharp and we’re going to be sure each player has that opportunity. We will find a local college or professional field and take batting practice before each game. We’ll take ground balls, pitchers will field their position, we’ll work on bunts, and it’s all overseen by top-notch coaches from all around the world of baseball.

“We give them this awesome platform. You can’t say this experience is what it was just because they won baseball games,” Gitzen said. “It’s the guys who are on the field with them each day. Every coaching staff along the line and pours into them every single day. We never have guys show up and just sit on the bucket; these kids are learning and growing at every level, and they love it. This is what real serious baseball players want; they want people to pour into them.”

Some of the winningest high school coaches have been with the Canes, we’ve had former MLB players, others who have gone on to coach college baseball and there’s even an MLB Hall of Fame player who’s been in the dugout instructing our players. Coaching is vital to our summer success on the field, and to the development of Canes players.

And that’s always been in our mission.

“One thing that is second to none is how this organization puts an emphasis on getting your practice in,” Adell said. “Most other travel organizations don’t practice or teach their players during these summer circuits, hindering their players’ ability to get better.”

Beyond the ball field, the Canes continue to be innovative in their thinking to promote players. Not only do the Canes have more followers on their Instagram page than any other travel team, that number also beats half the schools from the combined ACC and SEC. It’s just another way to showcase our talent in the social media world where the players reside.

Multiple teams in the organization travel by bus around our tournament stops, and we have a director of baseball operations to be sure our players traveling without their parents are taken care of. Uniforms are washed, curfews are enforced at the team hotel and we’re sure to give every player the opportunity to perform at the highest level game in and game out.

“It’s not about the flash and the gear, it’s about the people investing in the kids. We’re going to continue to be the standard-setter,” Gitzen said. “We’re going to grow as the trends grow, we’re going to continue to get guys into college and get guys drafted, but we’re going to continue to raise the bar of the level of experience we give to people every single day. I will never stop and never rest trying to make sure we are head and shoulders above everybody else when it comes to giving our players and families the absolute best experience they can have day in and day out.”

 

The best experience is what we’re looking to provide again this summer. Again, some ofthe best players from coast to coast committed to the top schools in college baseball dot the 2025 roster as we gear up for a busy June and early July competing against the top competition. Many of our players will go on to take part in other events later in the summer, like East Coast Pro, Perfect Game National, the Area Code Games and more. But until that time, there’s some winning to do. “I just feel so fortunate and lucky that we’ve been able to do what we’ve been able to do,” Petty said. “We don’t feel for one second that anything is owed to us. We feel lucky and fortunate.”