CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Players, parents, coaches, umpires, scouts, recruiters and fans alike were treated to a beautiful fall afternoon with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-70s as the 2014 WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship kicked off in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Nine games were on the schedule for the first day of the event, with the “host” team, Iowa Select Black, taking on the Ontario Blue Jays at Washington High School on the city's East side.
Steve James, who is PG's director of its fall and spring leagues, as well as all four Select teams participating in this year's Kernels tournament, recently returned from Arizona where he guided the Black team to the playoffs at the PG/EvoShield National Upperclass Championship.
Iowa Select Black, who lost their sole playoff game, would have received the event's No. 1 seed had they scored just one run in its first game, and not finished in a scoreless tie, on their way to a 2-0-1 record in pool play.
Instead they settled for the No. 10 seed.
“We still had our opportunities in the playoffs,” James said of his team's success in Arizona. “If we take care of business we make it past Round 1 and that's that.”
The PG leagues and Select programs are the root of Perfect Game's existence, helping to provide instruction and exposure to Iowa-based players whose high school baseball season is conducted during the summer months. The program has graduated players such as Ryan Sweeney, Joel Hanrahan, Jeff Clement and Jeremy Hellickson to the big leagues.
Recent PG League alumni include Mitch Keller, who was selected and signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the second round of this past year's MLB Draft, and both A.J. Puk and Keaton McKinney, who have advanced to SEC powerhouses Florida and Arkansas respectively.
“The way the fall works, the longer the kids are in the program, the longer you can track their development,” James said of his team. “The pitchers we had last year – (Cole) Baker, (Christopher) Comito, (Drew) Denkinger, (Zachary) Daniels, (Austin) Suhr – you can kind of see the progression from where they were last year as pitchers as far as velocity, development and all of that, and a lot of it is attributed to the program.
“But more of it is that they put in the work and they get after it, and it's easy to guide kids in the right direction when they want to learn and they want to get better. I think the biggest thing is the kids, the quality kids that we have.”
Baker, who was on the hard-luck end of the no decision in Arizona, took the mound on Friday, with numerous scouts in attendance, to once again put he and his teammates on the right track in pool play.
A native of Grimes, Iowa, just outside of Des Moines, Baker has made the most of his opportunity playing with PG's Select programs, and has committed to play in-state at the University of Iowa.
“I like the whole staff,” Baker said of his decision to play for the Hawkeyes. “(Head Coach Rick Heller) kind of sold it to me how he's trying to get the best players in Iowa to stay and show everybody in the country what we have, because he knows we can compete with anybody, and he wants to show that we can.”
Heller has made an immediate impression for the Hawkeyes baseball team. A native of Iowa himself, his first priority upon arriving on campus in Iowa City was to make sure the best players in the state of Iowa stayed in-state to further both their academic and athletic careers.
“The biggest thing is that the new staff came out and saw our kids last fall damn near every weekend,” James said of Heller's local recruiting impact. “They made sure, they made it a point, to go out and see all of the young (local) kids to make sure that the guys that were going to be guys that they were going to get them, and they were going to get them early. And that's their key and they know they have to do it, get on the best kids early and keep them in state.”
The immediate impact of Heller and his staff focusing on the in-state players is obvious, as Baker, Comito and Luke Farley have all committed to play for the University of Iowa.
Baker alone could make a big impact for the Hawkeyes.
“Baker's a different animal, just in the sense that he's a wrestler in the offseason,” James said of his staff ace. “He's got that attitude out there on the mound, he's not going to let you beat him, he's going to leave it all out there. He's gotten a lot stronger, put in the work, and made a couple tweaks here and there to his delivery to maximize everything he does.”
Baker, a 6-foot-4, 215-pound righthander, has been a member of the Select program for three years, and has seen a steady improvement in velocity, peaking at 80 mph as a sophomore, the mid-80s as a junior, and 90 mph currently. And there's plenty of reason to believe those improvements will continue moving forward.
“He's throws it so easy, he's gotten a lot better about locating his fastball,” James said of Baker. “Doing this the last 10 years you kind of see where the Iowa guys are about a year, year-and-a-half, behind developmentally.
“Even the pitchers, take look at Mitch Keller last year, A.J. (Puk, etc.). They're 85-86 and then all of the sudden they're 90-91 the spring of their senior year. You wonder 'where was that last fall?' It's just the way summer high school baseball works.”
Baker is also quick to recognize the improvements he has made under the tutelage of James.
“He's tweaked my mechanics a little bit, made them more smooth. (I've been) doing a lot of bands, a lot of shoulder work, making me stronger.”
Unfortunately for Baker adversity struck hard last January as his father, Mike, suffered a heart attack and passed away. Young Cole was the first to respond to his father's heart attack, but has made it a point to continue the impressions his father has made on him both on and off the field.
“Before every inning on the back of the mound I write his initials,” Baker said. “I'm just going out there every time doing what he would want me to do, trying to reach the goals he set for me, and my goals. He wanted me to play D-I baseball and eventually get drafted. (I'm) just keeping his story alive.”
Deb Baker, Cole's mother, has been proud of the way her son has dealt with the passing of her husband as he continues to make his own path while honoring the memory of their beloved family member.
“Cole usually when he sets his mind to something it's pretty straightforward, that's what he wants to do, he's stays pretty focused,” Deb Baker said of her son. “Whether it's school, wrestling, baseball, you name it, that's kind of his routine.
“It's very exciting, as a parent, and it's exciting to hear other parents from this team or his high school team to cheer him on and cheer on the team. Especially with the year we've had, losing my husband. We've kind of struggled through that. I look up to him with the composure he still has and the accomplishments that he is still going through in such a short period of time since his father has passed away. It's been a good thing to get the support we've had.”
Those accomplishments include a win on Friday night, although it didn't come easy for Iowa Select Black despite scoring two runs in the opening frame against the Ontario Blue Jays.
While the pitching, courtesy of Baker, remained strong, Iowa Select Black committed five errors in the game, leading to four unearned runs. The Blue Jays scored a pair of runs in the top of the third to tie the game, and a single tally in the fifth to pull ahead, 3-2.
James' ballclub proved their resilience by scoring a run in the bottom of the fifth to tie the game at 3-3, and added two more runs in the bottom of the sixth to pull ahead for good.
Nolan Reinhardt went 2-for-3 with a double while scoring the eventual game-deciding fifth run. Alex Muhlenberg also went 2-for-3 driving home the go-ahead run with a single, scoring Farley.
And while lefthanded reliever Foster Anshutz gave up one of those four unearned runs in the top of the seventh, he was able to gather himself and record the save by striking out the side to preserve Iowa Select Black's opening 5-4 win.
Baker's performance was notable, going six innings and allowing only five base hits without issuing a walk while striking out six, throwing over 63 percent of his pitches for strikes. His fastball sat in the 85-89 mph range, once again peaking at 90, while also showing a much improved low-70s curveball that he did a nice job snapping off for strikes.
“Scoring runs, doing what we know we can do,” Baker said of the keys necessary to win the tournament. “We know every team here is really good. But we know if we play our top level we can beat anybody. We've got to cut down on the mental errors and keep hitting the ball like we were.”
As for Baker, James and Iowa Select Black, they're prepared to use the time spent in Arizona as a building block for further success, knowing there's a lot of pride on the line playing in the Kernels Foundation Championship with an opportunity to receive an automatic paid invitation to the WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla.
“We're playing against teams we play all the time,” James said. “Teams we're familiar with, and obviously this is where we practice (Washington High School) and put in a lot of work out here. Hopefully the kids play with a lot of pride and come ready to go.
“If we pitch and play defense and do what we're supposed to do I like our chances. But we still have to play the games, compete, and do everything to win."