FORT MYERS, Fla. – On Saturday morning, 16 young ballplayers – all in their mid-teens and almost all of them from the Miami-area – woke up and slipped on an Elite Squad Baseball uniform. They would eventually make their way to the jetBlue Park Player Development Complex where the Elite Squad Underclass Prime would begin the second day of pool-play at the 15u Perfect Game BCS National Championship.
The Elite Squad uniforms come in varying styles with interchangeable lettering and logos – often the word “SQUAD” is emblazoned across the front and other times a stylistic “E” will suffice – but each time one of these young ballplayers pulls one on, he almost becomes overwhelmed with a sense of pride.
“This is a great organization and that’s why I chose (to play) for Elite Squad,” top 2020 corner-infield prospect Jamar Fairweather told PG Saturday. “To put this uniform on and go out and play, it’s a blessing. There are a lot of people who would love to play for Elite Squad; it’s just an honor to play for (the program).”
Veteran head coach John Calabrese brought the Prime back to Southwest Florida a year after most of the same pack of prospects reached the semifinals at the 2016 14u PG BCS Finals. It’s also about 11 months after the Elite Squad won the 2016 14u Perfect Game World Series up in the north Atlanta suburbs.
This Elite Squad Underclass Prime roster features six class of 2020 prospects who are slotted in the top-97 of PG’s national prospect rankings: No. 58 left-hander/outfielder Timothy Manning (Pompano Beach, Fla., Florida commit); No. 67 middle-infielder Lucas Costello (Miami); No. 75 Jamar Fairweather (Homestead, Fla., Florida International); No. 82 Roberto Moya (Miami), No. 87 Adrian Figueroa (Miami) and No. 97 Enrique A. Bradfield Jr. (Hialeah, Fla.).
“We’ve developed them and they’ve been with me for four years; that’s unheard of in travel ball,” Calabrese told PG Saturday morning. “But that’s what the Elite Squad does. It gets all local kids and develops them, and they become champions.
“Moreover, and what makes us most proud, is these kids will all be getting D-I scholarships and I’m very proud of that; I have no skin in the game other than that.”
Twelve members of the 2016 team were named to the 14u PG BCS Finals all-tournament team, and eight of them are back with the Prime this week. They are Manning, Figueroa and Bradfield; 2019s Chase Chatman, Matthew Corpas and Nicholas Vera; and 2020s Eduardo Diaz and Jet Lica.
Following their run to the semifinals at the 2016 14u PG BCS Finals, the Elite Squad reached the top rung of the ladder when they won a Perfect Game national championship at the exclusive, 24-team 14u PG World Series played at PG Park South-LakePoint in Emerson, Ga.
Chatman, Diaz, Manning, Moya and Nicholas Thomson (Boca Raton, Fla.) were all named to the all-tournament team at that event; Moya was named the Most Valuable Player and Thomas, a 2020 right-hander, was named the Most Valuable Pitcher.
“I believe that playing against the best competition will only make you better,” Manning said of he and his teammates’ tournament experiences. “We get so aggressive when we play the great teams like the (MVP) Banditos, Team Elite and all those other great teams, it just gives an extra edge to know that we can come out on top.
“And playing with a bunch of guys that know how to win and have the same attitude as you do, it just makes you that much better of a ballplayer.
The Elite Squad Underclass Prime slipped past the Mooresville, N.C.-based GBG Copperheads, 2-1. Manning threw three innings of three-hit ball without allowing an earned run, striking out nine and walking one, and combined with the lefty Chatman on a 15-strikeout, six-hitter. Manning was also 2-for-2 at the plate, as was Bradfield.
The Squad moved its pool-play record to 3-0 with a pair of wins Saturday. They got past Sarasota-based Florida Burn 2020 Premier in the morning, 4-2, and then blasted the Chamblee, Ga.-based Ninth Inning Royals-Phelps, 13-4 in four innings, in the afternoon/
Vera and Figueroa each had a pair of hits and Chatman, Fairweather and Isaiah Hood each drove in runs in the win over the Burn. 2021 hard-throwing right-hander Alejandro Rosario and Thomson combined on a five-hitter with eight strikeouts; Rosario worked the first four innings and gave up one earned run on two hits, with seven strikeouts and two walks.
The Underclass Prime used six hits and 13 walks to score their 13 runs against the Royals. Costello, Rosario and Figueroa each drove in two runs apiece.
“This is a very fun team to be a part of,” Fairweather said. “We’re a good group of kids and we just love playing together; that’s what we do. After last summer and since we’ve been together for such a long time, it’s just a blessing to be with each other once again and come out here and just play together.”
The key to the team’s success, according to Calabrese, is the players’ willingness to go out on the field and challenge themselves. A Perfect Game national championship tournament like the 15u BCS brings in some of the best 15u teams from across the country, and when he watches this team consistently make deep playoff runs while playing eight, nine or 10 games in five or six days, it speaks volumes about their makeup.
“They are really, really tough kids. They’re resilient, they’re awesome … and they love it; it’s just remarkable,” the head coach said. “They know what they have to do and we absolutely expect to win every tournament – every one of them.”
Manning remembered the hollow feeling shared by team members after they lost to the eventual 14u PG BCS Finals runner-up Texas Bombers Elite in 12 innings in last year’s semifinals. Winning the 2016 14u PG World Series certainly helped take some of that sting away, but Manning did talk about how “redemption” and “proving a point” were on the players’ minds this year.
That just sort of comes with the territory for these guys wearing Elite Squad Baseball uniforms, and touches the essence of what program founder Richie Palmer had in mind when he started the organization nearly a decade ago.
Palmer built Elite Squad Baseball “brick by brick,” in the words of Calabrese. Six PG All-Americans wore Elite Squad uniforms before they put on East team uniforms at their respective PG All-American Classics, including Alex Toral, Mark Vientos and Quentin Holmes just last year. A lot of history has been made within the program in a relatively short amount of time, and that isn’t lost on this generation of prospects.
“I’ve been with coach John Calabrese since I was 11 years old and he’s always treated me like a son,” Manning said, referring to a team he played on that wasn’t affiliated with Elite Squad Baseball at the time. “Then Richie Palmer came to our team when we were 13 (years old) and asked us to be part of Elite Squad, and it’s just been an awesome experience ever since.
“Knowing all the great players that have played in this organization, and knowing that I could be one of the next few (to move to the next level), that would be great.”
From here, the Elite Squad Underclass Prime will travel to Perfect Game Park South at LakePoint in Emerson, Ga., later this month for two more PG national championship tournaments: the 15u PG WWBA National Championship and the 15u PG World Series.
“These are pretty much the last three big tournaments – the BCS, WWBA, Perfect Game World Series – so this is what we look forward to the most,” Fairweather said.
Calabrese doesn’t mince words when it comes to expressing his expectations of this group, both this week and in the weeks to come:
“We expect to win it. We come into (the summer) expecting to win everything and anything else doesn’t really matter. I know who won the (MLB) World Series last year but I can’t remember who the other team was,” he said through a laugh. “But these (players) are always in the fire and that builds them up for now and for later in life.”