FORT MYERS, Fla. – It was really quite remarkable what this self-proclaimed 10-kid “band of brothers” from the Mid-Atlantic Seaboard accomplished over the last six days in the suffocating Southwest Florida heat and humidity.
All these youngsters from Delaware and Maryland did was arrive here in late June, beat teams from Georgia, Florida and Texas at their own game and earn the No. 1 seed in the playoffs at this week’s 13u Perfect Game BCS Finals national championship. And they did it despite being the only team in PG tournament history – according to some very hasty research that shouldn’t be archived as fact – to use the word “bagel” in its name.
The Rehoboth Beach, Del.-based Bagel Bombers Toppin will not win the PG national championship at the 13u PG BCS Finals, which concludes Thursday with the semifinals and a championship game. A title was something Bagel Bombers founder Adam Gelof knew would be a tall order when he brought his determined group of 10 Easterners south to compete for this championship.
“We may not win this tournament because we don’t have the depth,” Gelof told PG before sending his team out for a quarterfinal game late Wednesday morning at the JetBlue Player Development Complex. “But I really believe at the end of the day the kids that are here with me are going to get the best chance to be the best players they can be, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
No one can argue with Gelof’s assertion and the fact he had put his kids in the best position to actually win this tournament. The Bombers cruised through pool-play with a 5-0 mark – outscoring their five foes by a combined 42-12 – earned the No. 1 seed in the playoffs and received a first-round bye straight into the quarterfinals. Once there, they faced the Houston (Tex.) Athletics – a team they beat 3-1 during pool-play – and dropped a 7-4 decision that ended their tournament run with an impressive 5-1 record.
“It’s really a good group and when you see them, they’re just a band of brothers and they overachieve because of it,” Gelof said. “They really play for each other.”
By his own description, Gelof started the Bagels Bombers organization as a sort of “Mom & Pop” group that at first really didn’t try to take itself too seriously. The group took its name from a local bagel shop that was owned and operated by one of Gelof’s good buddies in Rehoboth Beach. In the early years they would just throw T-shirts on the kids, enter tournaments under names like the Smurfs, and try to compete with established organizations in the area like the Tri-State Arsenal out of New Jersey.
“We finally entered one as the Bagel Bombers and we had a pretty good run so it stuck,” Gelof said. “The next thing I knew I had 17 coaches and 17 teams.”
But Gelof isn’t in the business to build a dynasty. His teams are all youth-centric and once the players reach the 15u level he attempts to turn them over to the more established showcase teams.
He brought this team to Southwest Florida this week because he honestly feels like he has three or four kids on the roster who might one day play NCAA Division-I baseball – or maybe even professionally – and he wants to get them in PG’s database.
It’s an organization built with father-coaches who put up pole barns in their backyards all around Delaware and the Maryland Eastern Shore for their boys to work out in. Gelof has a son Jake – class of 2020 – playing on this team and another son, Zach, who is a 2018 grad playing with the Mid-Atlantic Red Sox.
The Toppin name for this group is taken from Dynell Toppin, who is the team’s head coach (and the father of 2020 shortstop Javon Toppin). Adam Gelof and Dynell Toppin have been coaching together for eight or nine years and Gelof puts the name of the head coach on each of his 17 teams.
Indeed, this salty 10-man roster is filled with kids who are friends and neighbors – nine of the 10 list Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes, Del., as their ultimate destination – with hometowns like Lewes, Milton and Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, and Hebron and Centreville in Maryland.
“If a kid leaves me and it’s a good opportunity for him, it’s all good,” Gelof said. “We’ve loved it, too, because with Perfect Game the kids have gotten good exposure; we’ll see what happens.”
There are some really talented kids of this roster and Dylan Smith, a 5-foot-10, 135-pound 2019 first baseman/left-hander/outfielder from Hebron might just be the best. He hit .385 (5-for-13) this week, with a double, an RBI, 10 runs scored and five stolen bases. He also made three appearances on the pitcher’s mound, working seven innings and giving up two earned runs on six hits (2.00 ERA) with 14 strikeouts against three walks.
2019 catcher Ryan Rigby from Lewes hit .444 (7-for-17) with a pair of doubles, three RBI and seven runs, and in one start the righty pitched five innings without giving up a run on two hits, striking out five while walking three. 2019 infielder/outfielder Ryan Teaman from Hebron was 7-for-17 (.412) with a pair of doubles, three RBI and seven runs and Javon Toppin hit only .188 (3-for-16) but drove in six runs, scored another six and stole four bases.
“The theme of our team is control what you can control, and that’s effort and hustle and playing the game the right way; whatever your ability is, maximize it,” Gelof said. “Everyone on this team … they all step up when they have to. … I could have added a lot of talent because we had plenty of takers, but I didn’t think that would get the kids that have been playing with me the best chance to be the best players that they can be in high school.”
By his own account, Gelof said this team won 95 games as 12-year-olds, and the Bombers were ranked No. 3 in the PG Super25 12u Mid-Atlantic Region behind the Delaware Vipers and the Go Wags Select. They’ve won numerous local league championships in the last year or two and have never wavered.
They lost some of their top kids from that team and Gelof contemplated holding tryouts to fill out this roster but ultimately decided against it to let the kids that were already here have bigger roles.
“I’m trying to do everything I can with these kids – no matter what ability they have – to maximize it with an eye towards high school,” he said. “When we lost a couple of better players to the Vipers and the Go Wags, we decided that we were just going to stay where we are and let our guys use it as an opportunity.”
He wants them to learn – as 13-year-olds – the right way to play the game and how to become good teammates. But the most important thing to Gelof is making sure these kids realize the extent of their abilities, maximize it and have fun while they’re doing it.
“Being down here at Perfect Game, we want them to seize the opportunity to have this exposure, and if their talent will take them to a further level beyond high school we want them to use this opportunity to start the process of learning how to play for other people,” he concluded.
Thursday morning’s 13u PG BCS Finals semifinals are set: the No. 9 Houston (Tex.) Athletics (5-1-1) play the No. 4 Texas Bombers (6-0-0) out Grapevine, and No. 10 SCORE International 13u (5-2-0) from Tampa, Fla., plays the No. 3 MVP Banditos (6-0-0) from Miami, with both games scheduled for 8 a.m. at the CenturyLink Sports Complex (formerly the Lee County Sports Complex). The championship game is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. at Hammond Stadium.