FORT MYERS, Fla. – One of the most oft-repeated lines to come out of the epic 1979 Vietnam War motion picture “Apocalypse Now” was uttered by Lt. Colonel Bill Kilgore, the movie character played by legendary actor Robert Duvall: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning!” Kurtz said, standing on a beach while canisters of the deadly defoliant exploded in the jungle surrounding him.
Head coach Paul Meade and his sturdy band of Georgia Jackets were in a completely different place and time at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, taking batting practice in the enclosed cages at the 5-Plex Player Development Complex an hour before their second pool-play game at the 17u Perfect Game BCS Finals. He didn’t say it out-loud, but it wouldn’t have surprised anyone if Meade would have blurted, “I love the smell of BP in the morning!”
“This seems to be an everyday occurrence during the summer but it’s a good thing, no question; we have a lot of fun,” Meade did tell PG, referring to the act of taking BP while the sun slowly rises in the east. “You kind of get used to it, quite honestly. The first couple of days of the summer get a little bit tough but that’s just the nature of the beast.”
His star outfielder, Jason Rooks, took the same approach: “It used to be tough but it really isn’t anymore,” he said, looking about as bright-eyed as you would expect any 17-year-old to look at 7 a.m. on an already warm mid-July day. “It’s really just started to be part of a routine where you’re waking up and going out and playing the greatest game in the world.”
This Alpharetta-based 17u Georgia Jackets team has become pretty good at playing the world’s greatest game, and with a roster that features 11 prospects from the classes of 2016 and 2017 ranked in the top-500 nationally – five 2017s ranked in the top-150 – they came into the 17u PG BCS Finals as one of the favorites to win it all.
The top 2016s on the roster that played in one or both of the first two games are outfielder/left-hander Tucker Bradley and right-hander Will West, both ranked in the top-500 nationally in their class. West started the Jackets’ tournament-opener Monday and Bradley, a U. of Georgia signee, was Tuesday’s starter.
The top 2017s that played in one or both games were Rooks (ranked No. 111 nationally, a Georgia Tech recruit), first baseman/left-hander Chaney Rodgers (No. 150, Georgia), catcher Cameron Turley (No. 309, Georgia Tech), catcher/second baseman Lawson Hill (No. 446, uncommitted), middle-infielder Kooper Briley (top-500, uncommitted) and right-hander/first baseman John Byrnes (t-500, uncommitted).
“I really think it’s their tenacity,” Meade said when asked what sets this team apart from many of the others at the 17u PG BCS Finals. “We have the kind of guys that when it gets down to crunch time, they dig just a little bit deeper to compete, to finish games off. It’s those games that need to be finished off, those 2-2 games, that you need to find a way to win, 3-2, or you have a 1-to-nothing lead and you hold that lead. We have guys that are mature enough to not get flustered when those games are tight, and I think that’s been the biggest thing for us.
“We had a lot of maturity in our boys at a young age and it’s carried them to this point right here. It’s gotten them some good (college) scholarships and some kids are going to have some (professional) chances, we feel like, after this next year.”
When many of these Jackets’ players were younger, say between the ages of 10 and 13, they were fierce rivals playing for separate teams called the Georgia Jackets and the Georgia Bandits. The two teams found themselves consistently battling for titles, so when the boys reached the 14u level the adults got smart and decided to combine them.
“We used to be rival teams … and it seems like were always playing each other in championship games and things like that,” Rooks said. “We’ve been together for three years now and we just have that bond, and it’s just been carrying on each and every year.”
Most of these guys spent the last several weeks playing closer to home at both the 18u PG WWBA National Championship and the 17 PG WWBA National Championship at Perfect Game Park South-LakePoint in Cartersville, Ga. The Jackets finished 5-1-2 at the 18u PG WWBA after a loss in the first-round of playoffs, and didn’t advance to the playoffs at the 17u event after finishing pool-play 4-2-1.
Meade said there were just a couple of breaks here and there that didn’t go the Jackets’ way up in Cartersville, which is, of course, the story of the game of baseball. He knows he has the personnel that can carry a team deep into bracket-play at any PG national championship tournament, which is what the Jackets always strive to achieve.
“Our biggest thing, of course, is just teaching our boys how to compete and leave it all out on the field,” Meade said. “We’ve been pretty successful in the past and we just keep chugging along.”
This is a team that can use the slightest spark to set off a wild-fire at any time, like it did in its 12-0, four-inning victory over Chain Weaver in its tournament opener on Monday. The third inning started with the first two Jackets’ batters reaching base on errors, a couple of others were hit by pitches and before scorekeepers could catch their breath, 10 runs had crossed the plate. Rooks batted twice in the frame and delivered an RBI single and a three-run home run. It’s a crazy little thing called momentum.
“In that game (Monday), it was one hit after another,” Rooks said Tuesday-. “One hit turns into two, which turns into three and then it turns into six hits or seven hits in one inning. All of a sudden you’re looking at a 10-run inning and it just goes on from there.”
The Jackets’ hopes for a pool championship took a slight but certainly not deadly hit Tuesday morning when they allowed the Florida Pokers-Original to push across a run in the bottom of the seventh that resulted in the game ending in a 2-2 tie. Bradley allowed one earned run while scattering seven hits over 4 2/3 innings and striking out seven, and received a no-decision.
Meade was a pretty good ballplayer himself in his younger days. The New York Yankees selected him in the 28th round of the 1987 MLB Amateur Draft out of Urbandale (Iowa) High School but he didn’t sign and headed off to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla.
A middle-infielder, Meade was then selected in the ninth-round of the 1991 draft by the Cleveland Indians and played five seasons in the minor leagues (1991-95), reaching Double-A Canton-Akron in 1994. These young Jackets’ players are pretty good about listening to what he has to say.
“Another reason why our boys are pretty good is because they’re always looking to get better; they don’t feel like they’ve got it all down,” Meade said. “They’re always trying to take tidbits from us coaches that have been there … and they’re real receptive just on hearing our thoughts. You can never stop learning, and even once you make it to pro ball in order for you to get better you have to keep learning something every day.”
The biggest challenge the Jackets organization faces, according to Meade, is holding onto the top prospects when so many other nationally prominent organizations might be trying to lure them away. He’s proud of what he calls a “tight-knit group” but there have been occasions when a top player gets pulled away for the summer.
“It’s kind of unfortunate, but we’ve had a core of guys now for the about the last five years that has pretty much stayed together,” he said. “And there’s no question about it that with every team when they play together they play better, when they’re not playing as individuals. I think that’s one reason why we’ve been so successful.”
The Georgia Jackets have three more days of pool-play remaining to right the ship after Tuesday’s tie, and, outwardly at least, it appears they have maturity and the discipline to do just that. Rooks said this is a team that always seems to play well when it’s on an extended summertime stay in Florida and there is no reason to think it will go in the tank at this point.
“We’re down here to win,” he said early Tuesday morning while baseballs continued to get wrapped up in the netting of the batting cages at the 5-Plex. “We’re not here to lose, we’re here to win.” And, please, hold the napalm.