Local Players, Scouts Swarm to Showcases

By: Keith Mills

Once upon a time, UMBC baseball coach John Jancuska would plop down his lawn chair behind a backstop on a warm July night, take out his radar gun and stopwatch and go work.

"Years ago, you'd go to an American Legion game or the Baltimore Metro League, and you'd go and sit and watch kids play," Jancuska said. "Today, in the last five or six years, you come to these things."

"These things" would be the numerous baseball showcases, high school and college baseball's versions of the Five-Star Basketball Camp and the Top 205 Lacrosse Camp.

"Kids who are interested in playing college ball know they have to go showcase their abilities," said Jancuska, who is starting his 32nd year at UMBC. "Our job as coaches is to find out where they are."

And they're everywhere -- Trenton, N.J., one weekend, Wilmington, N.C., the next. Last weekend they were at Joe Cannon Stadium in Harmans for the Mid-Atlantic Baseball Showcase, a two-day workout and all-star game organized by former University of Maryland standout Lou Holcomb, who played for coach Mel Montgomery at Old Mill High School in Millersville.

"We're looking for athleticism," Holcomb said. "The five-tool player. Bat speed, foot speed, arm strength. The good athlete who can do a lot of things. It's a great chance for the players to be seen by a lot of college coaches."

Now in its sixth year, Holcomb's showcase is one of the most respected on the East Coast. Nearly 40 college coaches attended Friday's workout and Saturday's Crab Claw Classic All-Star Game, which featured a group of rising juniors and seniors from the Baltimore area and western Maryland against an all-star team from southern Maryland, Virginia and the Washington, D.C., area.

Towson University assistant Scott Roane and coaches from other local schools such as Washington College, McDaniel, Villa Julie and Mount St. Mary's joined Jancuska.

"Lou has a great network," Jancuska said. "He knows a lot of kids, and there will be a large percentage of those kids who can play at the Division I level. Some of the other kids here will play at the [junior college] or Division III level. We can see 80-90 kids in a two-day period."

"This thing has really grown," said Lee Schwarzenberg, one of the area coaches who assisted in the tryouts and the all-star game.

Schwarzenberg was Holcomb's assistant at Cardinal Gibbons in 2000 when the Crusaders won the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference championship. Two years later, after Cardinal Gibbons moved into the MIAA A Conference, Schwarzenberg replaced Holcomb as head coach when Holcomb left to start Diamond Recruiting, a baseball recruiting service for area high school players.

Schwarzenberg and former Archbishop Curley coach Roger Sowinski have been with Holcomb since the conception of the Mid-Atlantic Baseball Showcase. Schwarzenberg, Chris Bengel and Brooks Carey of Calvert Hall coached the North Team in last Saturday's all-star game.

"These [showcases] were not around when we were kids," said Orioles associate scout Joe Stetka of C. Milton Wright High School, who, along with Mustangs head coach Tony Blackburn, helped run Friday's workout. "For the kids that are serious about the game these are ideal. There's a good chance somebody will see them here and give them a chance to play college baseball."

"I think it's great for the local schools," said Archbishop Spalding coach Steve Miller. "Because we all want to keep the Maryland talent in Maryland, it's great exposure for the kids, a great opportunity."

Like most high school coaches, Miller warns his players’ parents not to overdo the showcase experience.

"If you go to a lot of these, it can be very expensive, and it takes up so much time," said Miller, who has built one of the area's premiere programs and has coached dozens of players who have continued their careers in college, including Paul DeVito, Jason Patten, Jeff Kemp and Matt Hillsinger. "Pick one or two that has a good track record, and let that be it. You're not going to get any more exposure going to five or six of these as opposed to one or two."

Miller's Archbishop Spalding baseball complex in Severn also hosts the summer session of the Southern Maryland Baseball Camp, another popular and successful area showcase run by Jerry Wargo. It has helped more than a hundred area players earn college scholarships and dozens more to play professionally.

Still, Miller said the showcase is just a small part of young players' overall development.

"So many guys are going to so many showcases that other parts of the game are getting lost a little bit," Miller said. "Bunting, base running -- little things we did as kids in the backyard. That's how you learn the game."

At virtually every showcase, the workouts are the same.

Every player is timed in the 60-yard dash. Pitchers throw off a mound with their velocity measured by radar guns. Catchers are graded on arm strength and quickness. Outfielders throw from right field to third base and home plate. Infielders throw from shortstop to first while position players also hit, but usually with no more than five to 10 swings.

"These things are so geared toward the 60 time," Miller said. "Arm strength, power, hitting and pitching and throwing to the gun. I think a lot of young kids are missing the boat a little bit to the finer points of the game."

Holcomb gives each college coach a breakdown of the workout's best prospects in regards to speed, arm strength and power and also gives them a computerized printout of every player's height, weight, high school, home address, telephone number, position, e-mail information, grade point average and SAT score -- information that has become crucial in the recruiting world.

"I've had coaches ask that we do this, because it really helps them identify who the good students are," Holcomb said. "And that's becoming more and more important. Nick Enriquez, the assistant coach at Dartmouth, won't even come down here unless I put the academic stuff in there. And that's a good thing. We stress academics here as well. We want a well-rounded student athlete."

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More than 80 players from the Baltimore area took part in Friday's morning workout while another 120 worked out in the afternoon from the Virginia and Washington, D.C., area, with 21 players from each workout selected for the North-South game Saturday night.

The North team consisted of the following players:

Blake Geiger, Michael Trionfo and Evan Cain (Calvert Hall), Dylan Taylor and Kyle Convissar (Severna Park), Blake Thompson and Andrew Parker (Cardinal Gibbons), Hank Adams and Jimmy Lanning (Frederick), Eddie Palmer (Archbishop Spalding) Justin Whittington (Catonsville), Drew Liebert (Towson), Amir Smith (Lackey), Ryan Collins (Southern-Harwood), Jared Christiansen (Hammond), Nick Hallis (Liberty), Mark Smith (Westminster), Huston Hergesheimer (Bel Air) and three out-of-state players, Vincent Molesky (Montoursville, Pa.), Zach Speece (Palmyra, Pa.) and Corey Smith (Lake Forest, Del.)

Geiger, Trionfo, Cain, Palmer, Molesky, Speece, Thompson and Parker will also play this fall for the Oriolelanders team in the Major League Scout Showcase. Parker was the Most Valuable Player in last year's Mid-Atlantic Classic, joining Calvert Hall's Wink Nolan and DeVito as other MVPs.

"I see myself as the same player as last year," said Parker, an All-MIAA A Conference selection this past spring at Cardinal Gibbons, who helped the Green Terror Under-18 amateur team to a semifinal berth in last week's Dizzy Dean World Series in Mississippi. "But I think it opened the eyes of some other people."

"It's very exciting," said Mark Smith, a rising senior at Westminster. "I just tried to go out and play well, and when Mr. Holcomb called to let me know I had made the team it was very exciting."

Smith pitches and plays first base and in the outfield for coach Bryan Harman, and he is the son of Mark Smith, the Baltimore Ravens’ assistant trainer. Bryan Harman is a regular at Ravens training camp and grew up watching Ray Lewis, Jonathan Ogden, Ed Reed, Derrick Mason and their teammates deal with the pressure and scrutiny of professional football.

"They know when to work hard and when to have fun," Smith said. "You have to know how to separate the two. Right now, when you're sitting on the bench with the guys you can have fun, but when you go out and perform for the scouts and coaches you have to take it seriously and focus on what you need to do."

Smith’s parents were in the stands at Joe Cannon Stadium Saturday as their son and 42 of the best players on the East Coast took part in Holcomb's sixth Mid-Atlantic Classic. The South held on to win, 14-10, in a wild game that took more than four hours to play and included a 45-minute rain delay.

Youse's O's Begin Title Defense

Youse's Maryland Orioles open the All American Amateur Baseball Association Tournament in Johnstown, Pa., Monday as champions of the Cal Ripken Sr. League but with a team that is just a shell of the one that began the year.

The Orioles beat the College Park Bombers, 11-1, to win this year's league title and will be the team to beat in Johnstown despite losing two key players to injury and five to professional baseball. Pitcher Jake Quigg (Loyola Blakefield/Radford) was lost for the year with an arm injury while Steven Bumbry (Dulaney/Virginia Tech) has missed substantial time because of severe headaches due to a concussion he received at the end of his college season.

Add to that Derrik Gibson, Tyler Massey, Quintin Miller, L.J. Hoes and Oliver Drake, who all signed pro contracts at some point this summer, and Youse's 40-7 record and Ripken Sr. League title are impressive.

Gibson, Miller and Hoes were all set to go to North Carolina before signing professional contracts. Gibson, who went to Seaford High in Delaware, signed with the Boston Red Sox. Miller, who grew up in New Jersey, signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Hoes, who went to St. John's Prep in Washington, D.C., signed with the Orioles. Drake, who attended the U.S. Naval Academy for two years before opting out of his commitment, also signed with the Orioles while Massey, who went to Baylor High in Chattanooga, Tenn., signed with the Colorado Rockies for more than $500,000.

Issue 3.32: August 7, 2008