10/10/2011 9:24:00 AM
FORT MYERS, Fla. - It's a beautiful morning here at Terry Park, with the blue Florida sky offering a few clouds of the white, wispy variety instead of the dark, menacing variety the PG WWBA Underclass World Championship saw way too many of on Saturday.
The four quarterfiinal games are in the books, and the tournament's final 4 couldn't be more stacked. One semifinal has the top-seeded East Cobb Braves (6-0) playing No. 4-seed Chet Lemon's Juice (6-0), and the other semi features No. 2 FTB Mizuno Royal (6-0) and No. 6-seed and defending champion Marucci Elite (6-0).
"It's all 'Big Boys' left with Marucci, us, the Braves and Chet - it's all Big Boys now," FTB Mizuno Purple coach Jered Goodwin commented when I sat down next to him on a bleacher seat after his team had whipped No. 23 East Cobb Astros White, 9-1, in the most one-sided of the four quarters.
The East Cobb Braves beat the No. 8 South Charlotte Panthers, 3-0; Marucci Elite topped No. 19 Hitters Baseball, 6-1; and Chet Lemon's Juice got past Palm Beach County PAL, 5-3, in the other quarterfinals.
I spent the morning watching the Juice-PAL game, and it was a dandy. The Juice jumped to a 3-0 lead, PAL came back and tied it up at 3, and then the Juice pushed across two in the bottom of the sixth to pull out the win.
At one point during the game, I was watching former big-league standout Chet Lemon coaching at third base, when a lanky, left-handed hitting top middle-infield prospect stepped in to hit. The young man was Nicholas Gordon from Windemere, Fla., the son of former big-league closer Tom "Flash" Gordon. Nicholas grounded out to second in this particular at-bat, but he's already a good one. PG has him ranked as the nation's No. 48 top overall prospect in the class of 2014.
While chatting with Goodwin, he felt compelled share with me the main reason why he brought his group of underclassmen here to this tournament.
"We take all the young ones to this to get them their college looks," he said. "We've got five or six kids who are going to get offers, big offers, from this. Guys are like, 'We need you on campus in the next month so we can offer you.' That's big and that's what it's all about."
That's what it's all about. Now it's time to go check-out the semis.