CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – The Crowl family out of Council Bluffs, Iowa, has shared thousands of miles and at least that many smiles traveling to more than 50 Perfect Game showcases and tournaments over the last eight years. More often than not, it seems like all those highways and all that good humor lead them right back to Veterans Memorial Stadium and Perfect Game Field.
Here they were again Saturday, father Ron and mother Mary Jo with their youngest son, Kyle, at the 14th annual Perfect Game Spring Top Prospect Showcase at PG Field. It marked the sixth time since 2009 one of the Crowl brothers - Collin, Alex or Kyle - has been in attendance at the long-running event.
Kyle’s appearance at this weekend’s PG Spring Top – his third in as many years – represents the eighth straight year a Crowl brother has attended a PG showcase at Perfect Game Field. For a competitor like Crowl, a middle-infielder ranked No. 421 nationally (No. 3 in the state of Iowa) in the high school class of 2016, it’s something that never gets old.
“I just want to get my numbers up and show some scouts that I just keep improving with my game,” Crowl said while waiting for the action to get underway on a cool, cloudy and comfortable spring morning in Eastern Iowa. “It’s incredibly important to me just to show that I keep getting better and show everybody that I’m not content with where I’m at right now.
“I love the competition,” he added with a smile. “These are some of the best players in the country all coming out to play against each other and you want to show that you belong out here; that’s really what it’s been all about for me.”
The PG Spring Top at PG Field is specifically aimed at prep prospects from Iowa and Wisconsin whose high schools don’t play a spring season, although it’s open to all comers. It provides an opportunity for them to shake some of the winter cobwebs off by facing high caliber competition while their counterparts in the rest of the country compete in their spring high school seasons.
Crowl is a 6-foot-2, 180-pound senior at Council Bluffs Abraham Lincoln (CBAL) High School and a University of Iowa signee who has never been shy about seeking out opportunities. His brothers Collin and Alex combined to attend 24 Perfect Game events between 2009 and 2012; this is Kyle’s 30th PG event since 2012.
“It’s really just about him playing baseball,” Kyle’s dad, Ron Crowl said, when asked what keeps them coming back. “In Iowa, we kind of have a limited spring … so in order to get better and to try to get at least 300 at-bats each year, you’ve got to find a place to play baseball. He wants a chance to compete and maybe have an opportunity to get some field time once he gets to Iowa (in the fall), and you’ve got to play baseball in order to get better.
“He’s driven by it and that’s what he wants to do, so this is just one more opportunity that we get for him to go and see really good pitching,” Ron continued. “That’s the most important thing is to see as good of pitching as you possibly can.”
Crowl’s Perfect Game history tells a tale of ambition and aspiration when it comes to improving his game and making himself a better all-around athlete. When he was at the 2013 PG Midwest Underclass Showcase here at PG Field he ran a 7.46-second 60-yard dash and threw 83 mph across the infield. At last year’s Spring Top he ran a personal best 6.95-second 60 and a couple of months later at the Midwest Top threw a personal best 92 mph across the infield.
The PG showcases seem to bring the best out in this kid who lives just across the Missouri River from Omaha. Crowl was named to the prestigious Top Prospect List at five events (the Spring Top twice, the Midwest Top twice and the Midwest Underclass once) and to the Top Prospect Team twice (the 2014 PG Junior National in Fort Myers, Fla., and the 2014 PG Underclass All-American Games in San Diego).
“I like doing (the workouts) where you can show every aspect of your game; every one of your tools you can kind of showoff,” Crowl said. “Even during BP, you can show off your power or you can hit (line drives) and it’s a real nice setup that they have for us.”
There have also been five PG all-tournament selections in the last two years, two while playing with Iowa Select Black (2015 PG WWBA Labor Day Classic at LakePoint and 2015 PG WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship), two with Iowa Select Navy (2014 PG WWBA Kernels Foundation and 2014 PG WWBA Underclass World Championship) and one with North East Baseball (2015 PG WWBA East Memorial Day Classic).
The selection at the ’15 PG WWBA Labor Day-LakePoint event was especially gratifying because it came after Crowl’s Iowa Select Black squad rolled through the tournament with a 6-0-0 record and won the championship. He was also given the opportunity to enjoy all that is offered at the exalted PG WWBA World Championship in Jupiter, Fla., with Midwest PG Red in 2014 and Iowa Select in 2015.
“Going down to Jupiter is an experience you’re never going to forget,” he said. “The first time you see all those golf carts (filled with scouts) running around, you’re kind of like, ‘Holy crap, this is a big deal.’ It’s crazy. Even after being there a couple of times you’re still incredibly nervous. But really, going down there (in 2015) I kind of knew what to expect and I wasn’t quite so overwhelmed by it all; I was a little more prepared for it.”
All those experiences are only going to become more valuable to Crowl as his baseball horizons continue to expand in the coming years: “He’s not going to be awed by anything,” his dad Ron said. “He’s played in all the big venues and he’s been able to hit against some of the really good pitchers and I think that’s going to benefit him at the next level.”
Another PG program that Crowl has been a prominent participant in is the PG Iowa Spring Wood Bat League, which serves as a perfect bridge between a winter of baseball inactivity and Iowa’s summer high school season. It’s a 14-team league this year that also includes players from Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin.
The Spring League’s rosters are sprinkled with D-I recruits from Iowa like Crowl, including class of 2016s Spencer Van Scoyoc (Arizona State), Grant Judkins (Iowa) and Ben Norman (Iowa), and class of 2017s Cam Baumann (Iowa) and Tyler Hillman (Purdue).
“That’s all the best players in Iowa and we all come together and compete against each other,” Crowl said. “There are (several) guys playing this spring that are all going to Iowa so it’s really nice to compete against them. There’s some really good pitching so it’s fun to play against everybody in the state and come together with all the talent.
“With Iowa having the summer season it’s huge to get a quick start on everybody else playing in that really good Spring League. It feels like you’re a step ahead when the high school season starts.”
Ron Crowl added: “Perfect Game really does a big favor for the Iowa kids. It’s a national organization but it’s headquartered in Iowa and has its roots in Iowa and it’s great for us to be able to take advantage of (what it offers).”
Crowl is, by his own admission and his actions, a big-time baseball guy but he continued to play basketball throughout his high school career and is on Lincoln’s tennis team this spring. He feels like it’s important to be a multiple sport athlete if only to mix things up a little bit throughout the year; he also feels like there are aspects of each sport that can translate positively over to the others.
“I’m a shooter on the basketball team and you can definitely compare that to playing baseball – if you miss a shot you’re going to keep shooting and if you have a bad at-bat you’re going to keep hitting,” he said. “I like to carry over the mental aspects of each game back to baseball.”
When discussing the people who have had the biggest impact on his development as a baseball player, Crowl is quick to point to his mom and dad, along with Perfect Game Iowa Select coaches Aaron Van Scoyoc and Rich Polak. But it is his brothers who have been the most influential.
Collin, a first baseman in the CBAL class of 2010, and Alex, a third baseman in the CBAL class of 2012, both went on to collegiate careers at Ohlone College (Calif.) and California Lutheran, and Iowa Western Community College, respectively.
“They’ve been really important to me,” Kyle said. “They’ve taught me a lot about hitting and have told me what to expect when I get to college. I’ve looked up to them my whole life. They played the game the right way and they were both really good players. I always wanted to be just like them and maybe even a little bit better than them.”
Crowl’s decision to sign with his home-state Iowa Hawkeyes was one of those no-brainers: “It seemed really easy. The facilities are getting a lot better and the coaching staff (with head coach Rick Heller) is really good there. The program is going in the right direction and that’s what I want to be a part of. I want to help take a team to the College World Series while I’m there and hopefully win it. But it was a really easy sell for them, honestly,” he said.
“It’s great to be able to have one that’s going to be able to go the University of Iowa and play for the home state,” Ron said. “He’s super excited about it and we’re super excited about it.”
Kyle Crowl still has his senior season at C.B. Abraham Lincoln to look forward to this summer and he feels good about the team improving upon its 14-23 season of a year ago. Crowl slashed .379/.522/.529 in 35 games his junior year, with 13 doubles, 17 RBI, 21 runs scored and seven stolen bases.
Hundreds of more miles and at least that many more smiles are being racked-up by the Crowl family from Council Bluffs this weekend – they made the trip east this time with Kyle’s CBAL teammate and classmate Adam Barrett and his parents, Scott and Laura. It’s been a way of life for the Crowls, one they’ve enjoyed immensely.
“The friendships that we’ve had throughout the years with all the other parents has been priceless,” Ron said. “The time that we get to spend with our kids traveling around and doing this, it really is priceless. If we weren’t doing this, a teenage kid would be home and doing whatever with his friends and we’d probably never see him. This just gives us an opportunity to have time with our kids. They’re having a blast and we’re having a blast, so it’s just really a neat time.”