Young Stars Wet Feet On Major Grass

 (Zachary Harrison/PressBox)

By: Keith Mills

No matter how good you are, how many showcase tryouts you’ve been to or how many scholarship offers you’ve received, stepping on a big league baseball field is still the ultimate thrill for a young player. Especially when the field is Oriole Park at Camden Yards and your hometown team is the Orioles.

“It was really a dream come true,” said pitcher Matt Jackson of Archbishop Spalding.

“I was saying how lucky I was to be here,” said catcher Eddie Palmer, Jackson's teammate at Spalding.

“Very cool,” said Robbie Harris of Cardinal Gibbons.

“Awesome,” said Cameron Digregorio of Perry Hall

“I felt like I was in the big leagues,” said Jack Carey of St. Paul’s.

Jackson, Palmer, Harris, Digregorio and Carey were five of 40 area and regional high school players who took part in this year’s Oriolelanders tryouts.

"It's always a thrill for the guys to play at Camden Yards," said Orioles scout Dean Albany. "Sometimes we take it for granted because we're always there. But for the kids, especially the local kids, it's really a big deal."

Albany and Sam Serrano run the Oriolelanders, a 40-year-old select all-star team of rising high school seniors that plays in the Major League Fall Scout Showcase League.

The team's history is rich and impressive. Started in the late '60s by Orioles regional scout Dick Bowie, it was taken over by Jim Gilbert and later Albany, who, along with a collection of other major league scouts and local college coaches, picks a 25-man roster that will play in seven showcase events throughout September and October.

Once again this year’s team is loaded with local talent. Calvert Hall’s Patrick Blair returns for a second year with the Oriolelanders after helping the Cardinals win a fourth straight Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference championship.

Blair just returned from the USA Baseball Tournament of Stars in Carey, N.C., and will now play alongside Calvert Hall teammates Evan Cain and Mike Trionfo, pitcher Mike Bronakoski of North County, outfielder Blake Thompson and catcher Andrew Parker of Cardinal Gibbons plus Digregorio, Harris and Carey.

Carey and Blair both play for the Maryland Select amateur summer team, coached by Jack’s father John and Patrick’s father Steve. Both will attend Wake Forest University.

“Jack and Pat are very good friends,” said John Carey. “They compete against each other, and they love to challenge each other, and we are just elated they are going to college together.”

John Carey is no stranger to Baltimore’s impressive amateur baseball past. An outstanding pitcher at Calvert Hall, he went on to Virginia Tech and was one of the many family and friends who gathered in the stands last week to watch the tryouts.

“It’s every father’s dream to see your son out on a big league field,” John Carey said. “It doesn’t get any better than that. He’s dreamt of it, but just going out on this field is really a dream come true and a joy for us."

The elder Carey grew up watching Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Boog Powell and Jim Palmer at Memorial Stadium. But Camden Yards has been the Orioles’ home for this generation of fans, Jack Carey and Eddie Palmer included.

“I usually sit in the upper deck,” said Eddie Palmer, who also plays on the Maryland Select amateur team and is one of three catchers on the Oriolelanders. “But this is the first time I’ve actually played on the field. It’s very impressive.”

“It’s just awesome,” said Jack Carey, who has started for coach Paul Bernsdorf at St. Paul's since his freshman year. “When I come to games here you always dream about what it's like to play on the field. Then you get down here and actually do it. … It’s really special."

***

On a warm July night in 1980, future Oriole Dave Johnson of Overlea High School and future Orioles scout Albany faced off in a pitchers' duel at Saw Mill Creek Park in Glen Burnie.

Johnson was pitching for the Oriolelanders All-Star team that year while Albany, who had just graduated from Brooklyn Park High School, was pitching for the Arundel Sun All-Star team.

Prior to that, the Oriolelanders stars used to play the Hearst All-Stars at Memorial Stadium. Albany took over the team from Gilbert nine years ago, and now the Oriolelanders play a series of showcase events up and down the East Coast. This year's schedule includes trips to North Carolina State, East Carolina University, George Mason University, Old Dominion University in Virginia Beach, Va., Johnstown, Pa., Allentown, Pa., and the USA Baseball Complex in Carey, N.C.

Past Oriolelanders squads have featured current major and minor leaguers like Mark Teixeira, Gavin Floyd, Severna Park’s Josh Banks, Williamsport’s Nick Adenhart, McDonogh's Brandon Erbe, St. Paul’s School’s Steve Johnson and St. John’s Prep’s L.J. Hoes, who was drafted by the Orioles this year in the third round.

***

Playing in Camden Yards may be a great experience, but the tryout isn't without pressure -- pressure that comes from trying to impress scouts and coaches with every step, every swing, every throw.

“I’ve been to quite a few of the showcase tryouts,” said Jackson, a 6-foot-5 left-handed pitcher, who helped Steve Miller's Cavaliers reach the MIAA A Conference championship game. “But this is my first real pro-style workout. I try not to worry too much about the scouts. Just try and go out and have fun. Even though you’re being watched in everything you do, it’s just a mindset -- tune it all out and just play.”

“We look for tools you can’t teach,” said Towson University coach Mike Gottlieb. “Bat speed, running, arm strength. Mechanical things you can improve on, but bat speed is important.”

“We’re looking for kids who have a good glove, good arm and that real good bat speed,” said Bob Mumma, a former player at UMBC and now an assistant to John Janckusca, who just completed his 31st year as Retrievers’ head coach. “And we’re looking for kids we can follow throughout the summer and fall.”

Gottlieb and Mumma were just two of dozens of college coaches on hand, while former Oriole Al Bumbry and former area minor league pitchers Tim Norris and Lou Holcomb assisted Albany in running the tryout.

“What I look for at these things is what kind of energy the kids have,” said Bumbry, whose son Steven was an Oriolelanders All-Star two years ago and will be a junior this fall at Virginia Tech. “I look for signs. Does he like the game? Does he have quick hands at the plate?”

***

Al Bumbry the coach would have loved Al Bumbry the player. A tenacious competitor with great speed and a quick bat, he grew up in Fredricksburg, Va., and went to Ralph Bunche High School in King George. He went to Virginia State College on a basketball scholarship, but Bowie urged him to play baseball after he saw Bumbry at an open tryout camp in Stafford, Va., in 1968, 20 miles from his home.

"The only reason I went is a guy I played high school ball with asked me to go, and he had his driver's license," Bumbry said. "That was only the second tryout I had ever been to."

Bowie signed Bumbry in June 1969 after the future Orioles Hall of Famer played four years of college basketball and hit .368 in his only year of college baseball. He was sent to the Orioles' Single-A team in Stockton, Calif., where his minor league career was interrupted by an 11-month stint in Vietnam.

Bumbry was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, earning a Bronze Star before being discharged in 1971. He then resumed his minor league career, hitting .336 for the Orioles’ Single-A team in Aberdeen, S.D. Two years later, he was the American League Rookie of the Year with the Orioles.

He played 12 years in Baltimore, made his home here and is now coaching the next generation of local players in the right way to play the game.

"I wasn't a student of the game," Bumbry said. "I learned 60 percent of what I know about the game after I stopped playing. When I got out and started to teach and coach, I really started learning the game. I'm a repetition guy. If they get basics down and they have skill and they keep working and keep working, they'll do well."

And like past Oriolelanders All-Stars, this year's group has listened to Bumbry and other coaches.

"You'd be a fool not to listen to these coaches," Jackson said.

"I just try and go out and play my game," Palmer said. "I just do the best I can and hope that's what they're looking for."

CRAB CLASSIC SET FOR CANNON STADIUM

Holcomb played his high school baseball for Mel Montgomery at Old Mill High School and then at the University of Maryland, and he now he runs one of the best showcase events of the summer -- the Crab Claw Classic. The mid-Atlantic game is set for Aug. 1 and 2 at Joe Cannon Stadium in Harmons.

This is the sixth year of the event, and like the Oriolelanders, it features 180 of the region's top players -- both rising seniors and underclassmen.

"Every year we're able to improve it," said Holcomb, who played professionally in the Texas Rangers’ farm system and later coached at Gibbons before starting a service called Diamond Recruiting.

"The first couple of years there was not a lot of college involvement, not a lot of notoriety,” he said. “Now the colleges are actually calling me. Towson, Maryland, UMBC, all the local colleges are represented plus a lot more."

Johnson is now 20 years old and one of many Crab Craw alumni playing collegiately or professionally. Johnson, who led St. Paul's to a pair of MIAA A Conference championships, was promoted from the Great Lakes Loons of the Midwest League, the Dodgers' low Single-A team, to their high Single-A team in the California League in San Bernando -- the Inland Empire 66ers.

"He has pitched real well this year," said Steve's dad, Dave Johnson. "I think he was a little bummed when he had to go back to low A after he pitched so well in winter ball. I told him to go back and take care of business. You can sulk or complain about it or go get people out. Wherever they send you, you have to get people out."

And that's what he did. He was 9-2 with a 2.34 ERA and 57 strikeouts in 73 innings for Great Lakes and one of the starting pitchers in the Midwest League All-Star Game.

"Obviously, you're proud of your kids when they do well," said Johnson, who pitched for the Orioles, Pirates and Tigers in his five-year big league career. "To follow in his father's footsteps is special. He's much more advanced than I was at his age, so watching him grow as a professional baseball player is kind of neat."

I-95 ELITE CHALLENGE

Baltimore and Washington, D.C., recently put a new spin on an old basketball rivalry -- the I-95 Elite Challenge, an all-star event that featured some of the best players from both cities. The challenge was broken down into games for rising freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. Washington dominated the competition.

Only Baltimore's sophomore class was able to come up with a win, a 100-96 triumph over D.C. behind 35 points from Kevin Smith, a rising 10th grader at Baltimore Freedom Academy. The Class of 2009 lost, 76-66, despite 16 points from Naji Hibbert and 11 from Devon Sadler, a rising senior at Aberdeen.

Dante Holmes of St. Frances Academy poured in 28 points, but the Class of 2010 lost, 89-85. George Jackson of Digital Harbor added 12 points while Calvert Hall's Jonathan Graham and Jimmy Hamilton of St. Frances scored 10 each.

Baltimore's Class of 2012 lost to D.C., 56-50.

Issue 3.27: July 3, 2008