About

The South Florida Bandits, based out of Vero Beach, Florida is a competitve baseball organization founded by Mark Holtzman.

Mark Holtzman has been recruiting baseball players for college placement since 1985 when Mark realized there was a need to help college eligible baseball players be seen by college recruiters. 

Born and raised in the Bronx, Mark played baseball in college for NY Tech in Long Island. He went from there to play a brief stint in the Pirates organization. Mark moved on from baseball and became a clothing manufacturer in NYC, when asked to coach younger players in NY. He could not stay away from baseball and began coaching 10 through 15 in the NYC area. 

After a brief period of coaching Mark began to realize there was a definite need to help the inner city baseball players be identified by college recruiters. So he began to seek out coaches who may have been interested in some of his players. As his research expanded, Mark began to develop relationships with college coaches and he soon began to realize it was not only inner city youth that needed help being identified, but kids from all over were slipping through the cracks, and his recruiting business was created. 

Over the years Mark has been able to establish an impressive list of colleges, coaches, and players with whom he has worked with. Through personnel contact and word of mouth Mark has been able to compile a “who’s who” of baseball talent, placing over fifty kids per season. 

As Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin once stated when speaking of one of Mark Holtzman’s players, Curt Casali: “He excelled for the star studded South Florida Bandits and legendary coach Mark Holtzman.” 

25 years later, Mark has compiled an impressive list of players, from professional players to D1 and D2 schools. His network of college coaches is equally as impressive, having sent players to approximately 240 or the 320 D1 programs. 

As Mark likes to say, “We put a lot of kids into schools and a lot of kids that might have fallen through the cracks.”