FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Northeastern region of the United States has enjoyed an unusually mild winter season but that does nothing to diminish the excitement that accompanies a post-Christmas trip to sunny and warm Southwest Florida with the intent of playing baseball and soaking up some rays.
Top 2018 infield prospect Bryce Reagan and his father, Kyle Reagan, made the trip here from their home in Amherst, N.H., so Bryce could take part in this week’s record-setting Perfect Game National Showcase-Main Event, which kicked off Monday and concludes Wednesday. This year’s Main Event features 590 underclass prospects from across the country, a record for any PG showcase event.
The 36-team showcase field includes players from the national high school classes of 2017, 2018 and 2019 and many are ranked among the very best from their respective states. Bryce Reagan is ranked No. 277 nationally and is the No. 2 overall 2018 prospect in New Hampshire and the state’s No. 1-ranked third base prospect. He is the Granite State’s only representative here and has committed to Virginia Tech University.
“I just really want to show everyone what I can do,” Bryce Reagan said Monday when asked why he felt it was important for him to be here even with his early college commitment. “I’ve gotten a lot stronger – I’ve been working really hard to get better and be as good as I can be – and I just want to show it off. It’s important for the scouts to see me, and if not them, I can see myself (on film) and see what I need to work on to get better next year.”
There are, of course, still a lot more players from Florida and Georgia in attendance than from, say, New York or New Hampshire, but the post-holiday trip south for the National Underclass-Main Event and three others next weekend is starting to become somewhat of a tradition for families from the north. More and more of the top prospects are training the year-around at indoor facilities in the northern states, but nothing beats getting outdoors in the sunshine and the warm December breezes.
“Anytime you can get out of the Northeast and get down here to Florida at the end of December it’s a good thing to do,” Kyle Reagan said Monday. “Anytime you can match-up against some of the most talented kids from around the country, we want to do that as well. This is a showcase and we want to showcase (Bryce) against some of the best talent in America.”
Bryce Reagan is a sophomore left-side infielder at Souhegan Coop High School in Amherst and this is the 11th Perfect Game-affiliated event he has played in since late June 2014. It is his second PG showcase event, coming on the heels of the 2015 Northeast Underclass Showcase held Aug. 14-16 in Northborough, Mass.
Most of his PG tournament experience has come playing with the New England Ruffnecks Baseball organization, which is based in the Boston area (Reagan was named to the all-tournament team at the PG WWBA Underclass World Championship in Fort Myers as a member of the Northeast Baseball team). The majority of that activity has come with the Ruffnecks and head coach Kevin Graber playing in PG Super25 events, like the 2014 and 2015 15u, 16u and 17u Super25 New England Regionals.
“I’ve been with the Ruffnecks since I was 13 years old and they’ve (made) me a lot better; it’s made me stronger and a better player,” Bryce Reagan said. “Baseball definitely isn’t as big (in the Northeast as in the warm-weather states) but we do whatever we can. During the winter we can over to Harvard and workout indoors and my summer team, the Ruffnecks, we do that a lot.”
Added Kyle: “This is kind of the dog-days of winter and he’s a one-sport guy – he just plays baseball so he’s got nothing else to do – and his high school team is just starting (its) winter workouts. This is a good filler right before that starts to get outside and do some stuff.”
A switch-hitter, Reagan batted strictly from the right side up until the time he turned 11 years old. One day while messing around in the batting cage he decided to check out the view from the other side of the plate and he like the way things went. Now he plans to remain a switch-hitter throughout his career.
The PG scouts at the Northeast Underclass Showcase took note of his switch-hitting ability and one wrote that he “hits from both sides with a tall, upright stance with hands set high and close to the body” and that he “showed solid feel for the barrel from both sides, just better overall from the right side.”
Virginia Tech head coach Patrick Mason recruited Reagan to campus as a third baseman but made it known he will likely move the 6-foot-1, 180-pound 16-year-old to shortstop at some point. Reagan plans on moving to the middle of the infield next summer during another season with the Ruffnecks.
The Cincinnati Reds selected Kyle Reagan in the 18th round of the 1988 MLB June Amateur Draft right out of East Lyme (Conn.) High School and Kyle jumped at the chance to earn a paycheck on the baseball field. He spent the 1988 and ’89 seasons playing 79 games in the Rookie-Level Gulf Coast and Pioneer leagues and decided to call it a career. He is now an executive vice president for a mechanical construction company.
Kyle said he can help his son with a lot of the on-field baseball activities but while he was recruited by the University of Connecticut while in high school, he didn’t feel experienced enough to help Bryce with his own college recruitment.
“This whole process is so much different from when I was going through it, it’s like a whole other world,” he said. “We have a lot of people we talk to who are kind of steering the ship for us but everyone we talk to certainly promotes Perfect Game as one of the premier services in terms of the events to attend. Anytime we can we try to hook with Perfect Game.”
The baseball experiences he gets to share with his dad are something Bryce Reagan will never take for granted.
“I always look up to him; he’s my role model in life for everything that I do,” he said of his dad. “He always tells me to do my best and whatever happens, happens. He works with me on my hitting and fielding and all that stuff, and he never criticizes me. He’s always telling me just the good things in a way that lets me know what I need to work on to get better.”
When it became obvious to both Kyle and Bryce’s mom, Heather, that their son might be a head or shoulder above the rest of his peers when it came to exhibiting special skills on the ballfield, they made it a point to expose him to the best coaches and instructors they could find. Kyle could do his part as a former pro player but was quick to add that he was never a big fan of the ‘daddy-coach’ kind of baseball.
Bryce’s association with the New England Ruffnecks is an extension of that philosophy and his involvement in the PG National Underclass Showcase-Main Event is proof the plan of attack is working.
“Watching him (progress) is great; it puts me back on the field,” Kyle said. “Baseball is the best sport to play with the life lessons you learn on the field with the preparation that is required so to see him go through it now is great.
“I’ve never pushed him do it – he’s always done it because he wanted to do it – and I’ve always told him I didn’t care if he played the clarinet. He took to it early and it was good early, and he’s developed well.”
As for Bryce Reagan, he’s content to be playing baseball in the Florida sunshine, learning and laughing all the way with 590 of his closest friends.
“It’s just awesome to be down here with so many other good players – the best there is from around the country,” he said. “I can see the things they do right and I can take that into my own game.”