FORT MYERS, Fla. – At first glance, it would be decidedly easy and even a little bit lazy to assume that Brady Scott is a Texan. He is, after all, a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher with a humble swagger that is very reminiscent of Texan Tyler Kolek, a 2013 Perfect Game All-American and first-round MLB draft pick who let his fastball do all the talking.
And Scott shares another trait with Kolek and other notable Texas right-handers: He’s big. Really big. He’s strong and efficient. Really strong and efficient. And, most importantly, he’s a fighter, a kid that has fought at least one Texas-sized battle and slayed that dragon with courage and confidence.
Brady Scott is not a Texan and to the best of anyone’s knowledge has never aspired to be one. He is, in fact, one of about 14,000 residents of the Cobb County town of Powder Springs, Ga., in the northwest Atlanta suburbs.
A sophomore at Hillgrove High School in Powder Springs, there is definitely one thing about Scott that screams “Texas” and that is his size. He walked into the JetBlue Park Player Development Complex here Sunday afternoon as the Perfect Game National Underclass Showcase-Main Event was cranking up for its three-day run, and couldn’t help but be noticed. Not with that 6-foot-6, 260-pound frame filling out his showcase uniform.
And if the 16-year-old’s size somehow escaped detection, his pitching performance for one of two PG Texas Orange teams at the event certainly did not. Making the start in his team’s first showcase game, Scott faced the minimum nine batters in three innings of work without allowing a base runner, and struck out seven of those nine on 44 pitches, quite a few of them 88 mph fastballs.
“That was the first time I’ve thrown to batters since the very end of summer, and I just started pitching again this month,” Scott said just moments after wrapping up his outing. “I started throwing bullpens and long-toss (this month) and everything felt really good out there today.”
This is the first PG showcase Scott has attended, but he’s played in seven PG WWBA and PG BCS tournaments over the last two years as a member of the elite East Cobb Astros. He was encouraged to attend this event by East Cobb royalty Guerry and Kevin Baldwin, who are here helping coach the players they brought down from Cobb County.
“I know this is important,” Scott said. “I’m committed (to college) already so I really don’t have to come to these anymore (from a recruiting standpoint), but my coach (Guerry Baldwin) needed me to come out so I decided to.”
“Brady just enjoys playing the game of baseball,” his father, Ted Scott, said Sunday after watching his son pitch. “He wants to be around it as much as he can and he took the fall off, so he’s out here starting to get ready for the high school season.”
Scott was correct when he said it really wasn’t necessary for him to be here in terms of exposure in front of college coaches – he committed to the University of South Carolina within the last few months. He became a huge Gamecocks fan while watching them win back-to-back NCAA Division I College World Series Championships in 2010 and 2011 and longed to one day be a part of the program.
When Scott made his official visit to South Carolina earlier this year, a more profound reason for wanting to attend USC was revealed after his meeting with head coach Chad Holbrook. It turned out the two had something in common, albeit not a circumstance anyone wants to share with anyone else.
When Scott was 5 years old he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), a disease common in children but with a survival rate of around 85 percent thanks to intensive chemotherapy, radiation and steroid treatments. Scott was diagnosed in September 2004, the same month and year that Holbrook’s 3-year-old son, Reece, was also diagnosed with ALL. Both Brady and Reece are survivors.
“I wanted to go to South Carolina anyway,” Scott told southcarolina.247sports.com in September. “My connection with Coach Holbrook though, it solidified my decision. We’ve bonded really quickly and I love Coach Holbrook already.”
Scott’s father said it was when Brady was out on the baseball field as a 5-year-old that Ted and his wife LaFortune first noticed that Brady might be experiencing some sort of decline in his health. After the diagnosis and the beginning of treatment began, Brady’s ALL began to show signs of remission and he bravely marched right back out onto the baseball field.
“He played all the way through his treatment,” Ted said. “(The ordeal) brought our family closer together and it made us realize that there is a God that looks after us.”
Scott has now grown and developed into one of the highest-ranked national prospects in the high school graduating class of 2017. He’s ranked as the No. 37 overall prospect in his class (No. 3 in the state of Georgia) and the No. 16 right-handed pitching prospect (No. 1 in Georgia).
He gives credit to a lot of his rise in prominence to the Baldwins and the iconic East Cobb Baseball organization.
“It’s been awesome; you really get a lot of (exposure),” Scott said of his association with ECB. “I learn something every day that I am with them; something new happens every day. I’ve been very pleased (with my progression); I’m always busy doing something.”
Scott played with the East Cobb Astros 15u at the 16u Perfect Game-East Cobb Invitational; the PG WWBA 15u National Championship; the 15u PG BCS Finals and the PG WWBA 16u National Championship this summer and earned all-tournament recognition at each event.
“It’s been fun, and I love to watch him out there playing; his association with East Cobb has been great,” Ted Scott said. “He started when he was 13 over there and he likes being an Astro. I hope he gets closer with his buddies on this team because he’s playing with a lot of his (Astros) teammates down here. I hope he has a good time and just keeps progressing.”
According to both Brady and his father, Scott has always been a big kid for his age and no one can be quite sure if he’s through growing quite yet. He was listed at 6-foot-5, 217-pounds when he played in the 14u/15u Perfect Game-East Cobb Invitational in June 2013 as a 14-year-old and was 6-6, 245 at the same event this past June. Scott, who celebrated his 16th birthday in October, is now listed at that solid 6-6, 260.
“I just want to go out there and play hard and just try to keep getting better,” he said, his height and weight notwithstanding.
Brady Scott is a Texas-sized young man who has fought and won Texas-sized battles, but his roots are planted firmly in Cobb County, Ga. And the South Carolina Gamecocks or some Major League Baseball organization will someday, probably in the summer of 2017, be a lot better off because of it.