GOODYEAR, Ariz. – It was another very talented team San Diego Show founder/director/head coach Brian Cain brought to this weekend’s Perfect Game/EvoShield National Championship (Upperclass) tournament, and the players did nothing to dispel that during pool-play Friday and Saturday.
The Show won their three preliminary games by a combined score of 23-2, but in a 25-team playoff field stacked with deep pitching staffs, those two runs-allowed were only few enough to secure the No. 8 seed in bracket-play.
That meant they had to play a first-round playoff game instead of being one of the seven teams that received byes into the second-round. It did not, however, diminish the players’ desire to win a PG national championship tournament title.”
“I just keep coming to these tournaments and I just want to win,” superb 2017 right-handed pitcher/first baseman Kyle Hurt said Sunday morning before the No. 8 Show took on No. 25 MN Blizzard Blue 16u in a first-rounder on the Cleveland Indians side of the Goodyear Ballpark spring training complex.
“I haven’t won a Perfect Game tournament since I’ve been with the Show, and I just want to win one,” he said. “Last weekend we almost had it, but BPA played really well.”
Cain brought two teams – San Diego Show Black and San Diego Show Blue – to last weekend’s PG/EvoShield National Championship (Underclass) and the Show Black earned the playoffs’ No. 2 seed. They advanced all the way to Monday’s final four where they lost to eventual tournament runner-up BPA Marucci Elite.
There are five 2017s on this Show upperclass roster that not only played with the underclass team last weekend but were named to the event’s all-tournament team: Hurt, outfielder/second baseman Tora Otsuka, shortstop Tate Samuelson, right-hander Sean Szalapski and first baseman/left-hander Chase Wehsner.
“Those four or five players are going to play this game for years to come,” Cain said. “They’re good players, they love to be at the yard – they’re baseball rats. They’ll feed off that experience last week and hopefully they’ll take that past today.”
It wasn’t to be. The Show faced a very determined MN Blizzard Blue 16u squad that paid no attention to its No. 25 seed and handed the Show a 3-1 setback. All of the optimism that was so prevalent in the Show’s dugout before the first pitch proved fleeting but there still was no denying this was a very talented roster.
The top 2016s included catcher/outfielder Ryan Orr, a San Diego State recruit from Encinitas, Calif., who is ranked No. 376 nationally; catcher/third baseman Myles Emmerson from Spring Valley, Calif., a Cal Poly commit ranked in the top-500 nationally; high-follow outfielder and St. Mary’s commit Andrew Shebloski from El Cajon, Calif.; and high-follow and uncommitted right-hander/utility Colin Bovee from San Diego.
Perfect Game All-American, No. 6-ranked and UCLA commit Mickey Moniak was on the roster but decided to take the weekend off after spending most of the month playing for Team USA.
Hurt, from Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., is the most high-profile of 2017s with a No. 10 national ranking and a commitment to Southern Cal. Infielder Zach Sehgal from La Jolla, Calif., is ranked No. 113 and has committed to Stanford; third baseman/right-hander Casey Schmidt from Chula Vista, Calif., carries a No. 207 ranking and a commitment to San Diego State.
“We get pushed by each other; we feed of each other,” Sehgal said Sunday. “If one guy hits a double, you want to hit a triple or a home run, so there’s a little competition between all the guys. But it’s awesome; it makes you a better player.”
The one thing every prospect on this roster shares is a profound pride in slipping on the Show uniform. Cain has built the organization into one of the most respected in Southern California and it is recognized for having graduated some of the top players from the talent-rich San Diego area into high-profile college programs and the professional ranks.
“It means everything, you know,” Sehgal said of what he feels when he slips on a jersey with the word “SHOW” across the chest. “There are so many guys that have played for the Show and to follow them up is special. All of our dreams – I know it’s mine – is to be in the major leagues and be the best possible player I can be. … Having the support of Coach Cain and how he’s pushed some of those guys (from the past), you know he’s going to do the same thing for us.”
That’ high praise, and as he approaches his 50th birthday, Cain feels as energized as ever about the program.
“In 15 years of doing this, I don’t think I ever get tired of playing in these types of events,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun and these guys bring the youth out in me; they keep you young and they make it fun. From year to year, every group is different but you develop these relationships with them and it turns out to be a lot of fun.”
Cain shared with PG that former Show player Zach Robinson recently passed away unexpectedly at age 29. Cain said an untold number of his former Show teammates were present at his funeral and they were visibly shaken by his early passing. (After his years with the Show, Robinson was a member of the 2007 University of California-Irvine team that advanced to the NCAA Division-I College World Series, and was known as “Whammer”).
“It just goes to show what you’ve built over the years and it’s more than just the baseball; it’s the relationships and the friendships,” Cain said. “When they wear the Show uniform, they become part of our family, and that makes it special.”
The players’ association with the organization has also made them better ballplayers. Hurt recalled that when he first became part of the program he was a 6-foot, 180-pound package of potential who was never the best pitcher or the best position player on the field or in the dugout, and there were days, as hard as it is to believe now, he didn’t see the field.
Hurt was named to his first Perfect Game all-tournament team at the 2013 PG/EvoShield National Championship (Underclass) playing with the San Diego Show Blue and has been named to nine more all-tournament teams in the years since; he is now listed at 6-foot-4, 205-pounds. “Since I’ve (been with the Show), they’ve just really helped me grow up and become a better player,” he said.
“We’ll continue to cultivate all these relationships,” Cain said. “The beauty of it is that we have these relationships with the 8 and 9 and 10-year-olds (in the program), and as they farm up to us at this level, those relationships will have been several years in the making, and that will make it even easier when they get here at 14 or 15 years old.”
Despite the outcome of a first-round playoff game that resulted in an early exit, these players will continue to take a great deal of pride in wearing the uniform of the San Diego Show, even if more times than not that big word ‘SHOW” looks just as much like a target as anything else.
“Most of us have been together for a while and we all have the same goal, which is to win,” Hurt said. “Everyone is looking to beat us and it seems like we see everyone’s ace during the playoffs and even during pool-play, everyone wants to beat us; we’re just here to win.”