An angel for baseball talents from all over the world – Guggenberger Legionnaires Regensburg

Scouting legend Bob Engel is the mentor of the Gateway tournament, which is taking place in the Armin Wolf Arena for the third time these days. Perfect stage for young talents.

He usually sits rather inconspicuously at one of the tables on the terrace. Watches games and showcases, takes notes. But if you take a closer look, you will quickly notice – even without knowing who is actually sitting there – that this elderly gentleman is obviously much more than an extremely interested baseball fan.

In fact, Bob Engle is a legend in baseball scouting. Martin Brunner, head of the Regensburg Baseball Academy and Coordinator European Development of the MLB, says about him: “Bob is a true international ambassador for baseball and the best resource for the international players. We are honored to have him as our eyes and ears for the players and we are proud that his depth of experience brings credibility and value to the event.”

Highly decorated scouting legend

Engle has had an almost endless career in professional baseball and is one of the most decorated scouts in the world. After his playing days, he began his off-field career in 1973 with the Baltimore Orioles. As he recalls today, this gave him a great basis for scouting, which he would continue to do in various capacities for 46 years. Detroit, the Dodgers, Cincinnati are just a few of his stops.

Engle received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Scouting and has been involved in signing numerous players who made it on The Show, including four Cy Young pitchers, three of them for Toronto – Roy Halladay, Pat Hentgen and Chris Carpenter – and Felix Hernandex for Seattle. He also won two World Series during his long stint in Toronto.

Hernandez remembers meeting Bob Engle for the first time. “A great guy,” Hernandez said of the Scouting Guru. “He was watching me from the corner of the academy with his glasses half off,” the MLB pitcher told America’s Bleacher Report some time ago.

Engle always had and still has a special look through these glasses for international development, for players outside the USA. “Throughout my career, I’ve seen baseball played around the world and Seattle has signed many future major league players from Latin America, but also from the Netherlands, Italy, Korea, Nicaragua and the first player from El Salvador.”

Internationality has become more important in MLB since Bob Engle’s active scouting career. And the experienced Engle is an important voice for talent, especially from Europe. That’s why the Gateway tournament is particularly important to him. Engle was pleased to note that the level of the tournament is increasing from year to year.

transparency and professionalism

This year, the third edition of Gateway will take place up to and including Friday in Regensburg’s Armin-Wolf-Arena. A tournament that is unique in Europe. Martin Brunner invented Gateway. The idea behind it: “Nowhere else is there the opportunity to observe the best European U18 players so intensively, to see so many of their games in a short time and in one place.”

Gateway wants to bring transparency to the European elite players. This year, the U18 national teams from Germany and the Czech Republic, an all-star team from different nations and the team from the Regensburg Academy will compete against each other. The latter also includes players who play for the Guggenberger Legionnaires or other clubs in the Bundesliga. Regensburg’s Elie Musoni is just as much a part of it as Kilian Redle (currently Heideköpfe Heidenheim) and Anderson Zambrano (Mannheim Tornados).

Perfect profiles

The general conditions are highly professional. Analysis and video feeds from up to ten camera angles are collected for each game, data is recorded by dual radar systems, showcase tests are performed and traditional scouting reports are generated. Player profiles can be created from these results and sent directly after the event.

These profiles are the perfect basis to showcase players and make them transparent to US colleges and universities. That’s what Gateway is all about. As the name suggests, the tournament aims to bring scouts and talent together.

MLB scouts in the stands

The plan is obviously working. Martin Brunner, who already has the best contacts in Major League Baseball, reports that scouts from overseas are very interested. Brunner doesn’t want to reveal who exactly is there, the scout scene also thrives on secrecy. But there are big names from MLB among them. It is no accident that the logos of the Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies and others are present.

And it is not entirely by chance that the bearers of these logos can be observed time and again marching to a table on the terrace in order to have an intensive exchange with an elderly gentleman who has a lot of notes in front of him.