You for as Journal News/Lohud Baseball Player of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the lohud Baseball Player of the Week ballot is

The problem a nominated family runs into first is not the voting itself, it is the missing rulebook. The Journal News publishes the ballot, lists the players, and then says nothing on the page about how often a single person may cast a vote or who qualifies. That silence is the starting point for anyone rallying a school community behind a player.

The program itself is straightforward. The Journal News, the daily newspaper behind lohud.com, runs a baseball player of the week ballot for high school players across its New York coverage area. The ballot is served through poll.fm, Crowdsignal's polling service, at the address poll.fm/13761109. Each week during the spring season the paper names a slate of nominated players, each paired with his school, and readers decide the winner by public vote.

The May ballot carried the question "Who are you voting for as Journal News/lohud Baseball Player of the Week?" with a May 6-12 window, and the answer list drew from schools in communities including Harrison, Pearl River, Tuckahoe, Mahopac, Rye and Nanuet. For this baseball poll the publisher publishes neither a cap on repeat voting nor an eligibility rule; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The dated record for this baseball ballot

The series has confirmed runs in 2023 and 2024, two years that mark it as a recurring spring program rather than a one-off poll. Both years sit inside the New York high school baseball season, and the May ballot carried a window printed as May 6-12, a mid-season week rather than a season-opening or championship-week slot.

What the publisher has not published is the rest of the calendar. No opening or closing dates for future weeks appear on the ballot page, no nomination round is described, and no next edition year is stated anywhere. A supporter planning a push for a player therefore has to read the week's window off the live poll itself, because the paper does not maintain a published schedule for the series on that page.

The weekly shape matters for planning. Each ballot covers a single week of games, so a window that opens on a Monday closes within days, and the May 6-12 example shows the rhythm: a short, sharp voting period rather than a month-long campaign. Missing the first day of a window costs a supporter a meaningful share of the total voting time.

For the current cycle, the only reliable source for open and close times is the ballot at poll.fm/13761109 itself. The publisher's page carries the week's dates in its title, which is where the May 6-12 example came from, and it will carry the next week's dates the same way once the paper posts the new question.

How a supporter votes on the lohud baseball ballot

Few reader ballots are simpler to work than this one. The ballot at poll.fm/13761109 presents the week's question, the list of nominated players with their schools beside each name, and a set of radio buttons. A supporter marks the button beside his player, presses the submit control beneath the list, and Crowdsignal registers the pick and updates the running tally on the spot.

No sign-in step appears on the May ballot. The form accepts a selection directly, which means the friction is low but also that the platform's own anti-repeat behavior, whatever it is, is the only thing standing between a supporter and unlimited clicking. The Journal News prints no text about daily returns, IP limits or vote validation on the ballot page itself.

That combination, a low-friction form and a silent rulebook, is why the honest advice is to let the live page settle the question. If the publisher has enabled repeat voting, a supporter who returns daily across the May-style window multiplies his effect legitimately. If extra submissions fail to register, the effort is wasted and the supporter should spend the time recruiting new voters instead.

One practical note: the ballot's answer list is long, with players from schools across the coverage area, so supporters should verify the school name beside the player before submitting. A mis-click in a tight weekly poll is a vote handed to a rival school's player, and there is no published mechanism for correcting a submitted choice.

How this ballot sits beside its New York neighbours

The Journal News' baseball poll is one of several reader-vote awards in the New York high school space, and knowing the neighbours helps a supporter understand what makes this one different. The paper's own lohud Boys Basketball Player of the Week and lohud Girls Basketball Player of the Week run on the same publisher and platform logic, but in winter sports.

Elsewhere in the state, the Buffalo News Prep Talk Girls Athlete of the Week serves a different market under a different publisher, while the Hudson Valley New York High School Football Player of the Week and the New York Section 1 High School Football Player of the Week cover fall football in overlapping geography. A statewide New York High School Football Player of the Week ballot rounds out the set.

What distinguishes the baseball ballot is its spring slot and its tight weekly windows. Football awards dominate the fall, basketball the winter, and this baseball series claims the May stretch when the high school season peaks. For a player in the Journal News' coverage area, communities such as Mahopac, Rye or Nanuet, it is the reader-vote award that lands during the sport's most visible weeks.

Strengthening support within the ballot's rules

Because the publisher leaves the per-supporter limit unstated, the effective strategy is breadth over repetition. A player backed by fifty genuine voters from his school community, his travel baseball circle and local family networks beats a small group clicking repeatedly, especially if Crowdsignal's platform-side checks discount repeat submissions from the same source.

Timing matters more here than on month-long ballots. The May 6-12 example shows a window of days, not weeks, so a supporter who waits for the weekend has surrendered most of the voting period. Announce the nomination the day the ballot posts, while the paper's own coverage is still driving traffic to the page.

Keep the ask clean. The Journal News runs this as a recognition award, and a push that looks like automated bulk voting risks the player's standing with the paper regardless of what the technical rules allow. Real supporters, asked once and reminded once, are worth more than a hundred doubtful clicks. For tactics that fit weekly reader ballots, see the votes guide, and for how purchased support interacts with organizer rules generally, read the legality page before spending anything.