Diamond Baseball Academy

Found this organization to be VERY unprofessional in every aspect. For the amount of money being spent for my son to get the best training, I was disappointed. First, uniforms were ordered and paid for but not ready until after the season (fall 2017) started. We were given the option to "purchase" a practice jersey until the uniform came in. Which Joe's daughter did not know when that would be. Second, my son was assigned a coach, Mike, who also conducted tryouts. We did not get to truly see how Mike was until the first assigned double header. We showed up 15 minutes early with 2 other players. Coach Mike was by himself this day and no other adult was helping him. Coach Mike sucked on his vapor cigarette the entire time in the dugout and walking around with it. He made comments about making other players not making a first impression by not being at the field on time. In observing, he was loud and obnoxious in the dugout but I thought perhaps he was just anxious about the start of the game. During the game, which was not going well in our favor, my son stole a base and he did make it to second base. Coach Mike started yelling at my son, from his coaching position which was third base, "If you're going to steal you better damn well get there!" He continued to belittle my son and yell at him. The current batter struck out and that was 3 outs. My son was walking towards the dugout while Coach Mike continued to shout at my son that he could have cost the team the inning. My husband told my son, once he got back to the dugout that he did a good job, the coach then attacked my husband verbally. He said " If you don't like my coaching then get the F*** out of here!" He continued to shout in my husbands face "Hit me so that we can both go to jail!" Neighboring teams came over as we knew them from previous teams/years, to support my husband. Coach Mike continued to use profanity and yell - in front of the kids and parents. The game finally continued and afterwards I wrote an email the next morning as it was Sunday, to the owner Joe Strazza. I explained that we had a coach conflict and went into details about the situation that just took place. After not getting a reply, I emailed him again asking for a conference call. Joe Strazza finally replied that if my husband were to talk to his coach like that again that my son would be removed from the team/organization along with my husband. NOT a professional response in my view. Here is an organization that takes kids on, whether they are good or not, just to cash in. Parents are threatened not to leave any reviews. We are not staying with an organization that does not possess the same core values as my family. To Joe Strazza this is a money making business and he truly is not a professional business man.