GLENDALE, Ariz. – The 5-foot-11, 165-pound class of 2016 middle-infielder stood under a blazing mid-day desert sun that had already heated the air temperature beyond the 100-degree mark and produced a smile and look of pure joy that usually is reserved for other occasions like, perhaps, landing at heaven’s gate.
“This is some of the best baseball being played in some of the best weather,” the young infielder, Charles Bucolo, said Friday afternoon before playing a ballgame on the Dodgers’ side of the Camelback Ranch Cactus League spring training complex. “We don’t really get much of this in Alaska – actually we don’t get this at all in Alaska.”
It’s a certainty no truer words will be spoken at this weekend’s Perfect Game/EvoShield National Championship (Underclass) tournament then those spoken by Bucolo, a junior at Chugiak High School who calls Eagle River, Alaska, home and is a member of Gamers Baseball Alaska (GBA), a novice travel ball team based in Anchorage.
It was believed to be history in the making when GBA took to the field to play the So Cal Waves from West Hills, Calif., in a tournament-opening pool-play game on Friday. When the first pitch was thrown, Gamers Baseball Alaska became the first team from Alaska to compete in a Perfect Game national championship tournament.
Expectations? There really aren’t any. A sense of pride in being part of an occasion that may be establishing the groundwork for other teams from our 49th state to follow? In the words of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, “You betcha!”
“I don’t know what to expect, to tell you the truth,” Gamers Baseball Alaska general manager and head coach Jamar Hill told PG on Friday. “I think they’re going to have a good time but I haven’t set up any expectations performance-wise. I’ve got a lot of kids with this group that I’m really confident in – actually I’m confident in all the kids. Some of the kids are more polished than others but every kid has the potential to be pretty good.”
GBA dropped a 4-3 decision to the Waves in their opener and will play two more pool-play games Saturday. There was good and bad in Friday’s loss, with the Gamers out-hitting the Waves, six to five – catcher Julito Fazzini (2016, Anchorage) was 2-for-2 with a run and Nathan Bonk smacked a two-run double – but four fielding errors led to four unearned runs.
2016 right-handers Cody Curfman (Chugiak) and Korey Perry (Anchorage) combined on a five-hitter without allowing an earned run and struck out six and walked six. It was an eye-opening experience for the Alaska kids and one that was highly anticipated.
“You look forward to seeing what other kids can do with the blessing of being able to play all year around and having scouts being able to come out to their games,” 2017 Anchorage outfielder Parker Johnson said. “This is just a great experience to be able to see what they can do.”
Another certainty in this story is that the guys from Alaska are definitely playing against a stacked deck, not that they would ever bring that up.
A typical high school season in Alaska kicks off the first week in May but it is much abbreviated. A high school team will typically play 10 games during the month of May, which makes it difficult to establish much of a rhythm. As Hill pointed out, if a player goes 0-for-4 it might be considered a major slump because he may never have an opportunity to snap out of it.
“I think the kids are often times hard on themselves because they don’t have an 80-game season to bounce back from bad performances,” he said. “(Tournaments) like this help them enjoy baseball a little more where they can say, ‘OK, I had a bad game and it’s not the end of the world. I got to meet a lot of cool kids from a lot of places that normally I wouldn’t even know,’ especially with the social media stuff.”
The short high school season leads into about a two month American Legion Baseball season. In fact, Hill said most players view the high school slate as a sort of preseason or “spring training” in anticipation of the summer Legion ball season.
“These tournaments allow us an opportunity to get down here and see a different level of baseball that we don’t get in our state,” he said. “It just motivates our kids to want to keep chasing the dream and being able to play past high school.”
Hill shared that just in the past week he’s been receiving emails from college recruiters from around the country inquiring about his players. He’s upfront with his players and keeps them informed about the schools and programs that have been in contact looking for prospects.
“It just lets them know that it’s a possibility that they can come down here and create a good performance and be on the radar for someone,” Hill said. “I just like that because of the culture where we’re from, there’s not a college team, there’s not a professional team, so kids don’t inherently expect go get these opportunities; we’re really blessed to be a part of (a Perfect Game) event.”
The players are not taking this opportunity for granted. While not saying they feel have something to prove it is easy to sense they want so badly to show they belong.
“I’m just trying to compete, really; just trying to keep up with everyone else,” Bucolo said. “Up in Alaska, the high school season is always competitive right at the end but it’s pretty short so we try to cherish the games that we do get. In high school we’ll only have about a 10 game season and Legion is a little longer, and you always have those teams that are a little more competitive than the others.”
Hill grew up in Alaska and played travel ball with a team out of Seattle, Wash., while in high school, an experience he said was invaluable. He was drafted by the New York Mets in the 50th round of 2000 MLB Amateur Draft out of Bartlett High School in Anchorage but didn’t sign and headed to Santa Ana (Calif.) College instead.
The Mets selected Hill again in 2001, this time in the 48th round, and the outfielder signed and played 10 seasons in the minor leagues, advancing as far as the Double-A level.
“It was an experience that a lot of other Alaskans haven’t ever really got a chance to get,” he said. “I’m hoping that I can take the knowledge that I got from that and the experience of events like this and pass it on to these kids and help them create a bridge to more kids and getting them to where they want to be.”
The team competing here this weekend at a Perfect Game national tournament event played exactly two games together before arriving in the desert.
“The cool thing about this group is that they really bonded as if they’ve played on travel teams their whole life,” Hill said. “They’ve really gotten along well with each other and it’s really humbled me as a coach; it’s showed me there is more to this than winning and you want to create good teams with good people.”
Bucolo has become a baseball-only guy at his high school while Johnson continues to play basketball. Johnson shared that there is one indoor facility available in Anchorage that has a turf field but it’s difficult to get to and also kind of expensive. They do expect to show themselves well this weekend.
“We certainly hope to be competitive; we definitely want to come out of here with at least a win,” Johnson said. Added Bucolo: “It’s always kind of fun to come out and play when you’ve been overlooked.”
Having already experienced what his young players are striving to attain, Hill only hopes his guys can return home to Alaska next week with stories to share and dreams realized.
“I tell the kids that all I want to leave this experience with is for the kids to have fun and be a little bit hungrier to work hard and try to achieve their goals of playing at the next level,” he said. “With our program, we have access to pretty much the full talent pool in Alaska but no one’s been to anything like this so we don’t know how much of a benefit it is.
“I’m hoping the kids will get a taste of it, go back and tell their friends and we’ll be able to put better and better teams into this tournament in the years forward.”