The 30th edition of the Area Code Games got underway Saturday morning at 8 a.m., with Blair Field serving as the venue as always. And it's actually a new Blair Field, or at least one in the process of transitioning between being Death Valley to hitters to a more friendly but more challenging ballpark. There is now an new fence inside the old cement wall that cuts about 13-15 feet off the old field dimensions. There is additional construction updating the facilities at the landmark ballpark, the home of the Long Beach Dirtbags, Long Beach Wilson High School plus countless other area games.
The Area Codes have also been shortened to five days this year, with many scouts, including this one, planning only seeing the first four in order to see all three days of the Underclass Area Codes that start on August 10.
Saturday was broken into two sections, with four of the eight geographically based teams taking batting practice to start the day, followed by three seven-inning games.
Batting practice highlights
The Milwaukee Brewers team represents Southern California and has 11 of the 31 Perfect Game All-Americans in Long Beach on their roster, so their team batting practice strongly stood out from the others.
PG All-American outfielders Garrett Mitchell (Orange, Calif.) and Calvin Mitchell (San Diego, Calif.), who are not related, were outstanding. Garrett looked like he'd made some subtle changes to his swing mechanics to eliminate some extra movement and be more direct from first shift to contact and it showed with outstanding bat speed and steady hard contact. Considering that Mitchell is already one of the fastest players in the class with plus outfield arm strength, the hitting display in front of hundreds of scouts will assuredly boost his stock.
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