HOOVER, Ala. – This week’s Perfect Game Junior National Showcase, being played out over four days at the Hoover Met Sports Complex, is stocked with multi-talented athletes, coming this year from the classes of 2021 and 2022.
Perfect Game invites only the top underclass prospects to this event, so the fact that the best and the brightest are here should come as no surprise. It also comes of no surprise that when put into this sea that is teaming with talent, it takes a special player to stand out in the crowd.
And make no mistake, Texarkana, Ark., 2021 outfielder and Arkansas commit Braylon Bishop is a special player. He’s risen to No. 4 in PG’s national prospect rankings and was so impressed with his rise in the rankings after attending last year’s Jr. National in Emerson, Ga., where he earned Top Prospect List recognition, that he felt compelled to return and see if he could do it again.
“It’s a big event, and after last year I went from No. 120 to No. 7 in the (class of 2021) rankings,” Bishop told PG on Thursday, speaking from one of the turf backfields at the Hoover Met, where the action was moved to after a steady morning rain left the field at the main stadium saturated.
“It was a lot of fun last year meeting new people, and the competition, with everyone throwing 90-plus (mph), it was just fun getting to see some good baseball.”
That’s the aspect of the showcase experience that the prospects seem to enjoy the most, and Bishop is no exception. He loves being around a large group of his peers that share his same goals and aspirations of reaching the “next level” and beyond.
And it’s a topic of conversation amongst the players. Bishop said they’ll often share with each other some tricks of the trade, offering insight into how they might have been able to gain more speed or what they’ve been doing differently in the cage. In other words, what they’ve been doing to make themselves better all-around ballplayers.
The rain Thursday morning put a temporary damper on the proceedings but it wasn’t enough to slow an elite athlete like Bishop down. He’s listed at 6-foot-1, 185-pounds, and he’s not only physically strong but mentally tough enough to plow ahead.
“I’m just having fun,” he said, even while the rain continued to fall. “Just trying to stay away from injuries, with it being wet; trying to keep my feet underneath me and try not to slip.”
Bishop is in Alabama with his father, Nick Bishop, who seems to be enjoying this magical ride with his youngest son as much as Braylon himself. There are 11 other 2021s ranked in the top-30 nationally joining Bishop here this week, including No. 3 Brady House from Winder, Ga., No. 7 Christian Little from St. Louis, Mo., and No. 9 Irving Carter out of Boynton Beach, Fla., and it’s top prospects like that Nick Bishop likes to check out.
“For me, I like to watch the other kids, with them being from all over the country,” he told PG on Thursday. “I like to meet up with the other parents and talk and say, ‘Hey, where y’all from?’ and socialize. That’s something I like to do, and Braylon had a great time at this event last year. He got to meet kids from all over the country and they really bond and talk; we just had a real good time.”
Bishop, who just completed his junior year at Ashdown (Ark.) High School, has enjoyed a rapid rise up the rankings, and that wasn’t a result that came from his performance at the 2018 PG Jr. National alone.
He has been playing with Little Rock-based Sticks Baseball Academy and program founder Chase Brewster for the last couple of years, and he’s been named to four all-tournament teams wearing a Sticks uniform; that includes back-to-back selections at the 2018 and 2019 PG West MLK Championships.
“Being with Sticks has been good; there’s good chemistry between everybody,” Bishop said. “It’s like a family, basically. We all know each other – it’s good players being around each other – and we all have fun and compete.”
One of the all-tournament selections came in January at the 2019 PG West MLK Upperclass Championship while playing with tournament runner-up Sticks Baseball Academy, when he was one of only two 2021s on the roster.
Despite the age difference, there was a lot of familiarity between the players if for no other reason than eight other Arkansas commits were also rostered, all from the classes of 2019 and 2020.
“We’ve already built that chemistry for when we all go to college,” Bishop said. “We won’t have to regain anything and it’ll all be there; we’ll be a better team.”
When Bishop committed to Arkansas back in 2017, Brewster had this to say to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:
“When you think of a left-handed guy in the middle of the lineup, he’s what you think of. He hits for power in the 3-4 hole and drives in runs. He does a really good job of hitting with runners on base.”
In addition to what he’s already accomplished in baseball, Bishop – who turned 16 on April 27 – is also a standout in football, playing quarterback for the Ashdown High School team. He’s been taking snaps on the varsity since his freshman season and has said he’d like to play both baseball and football at Arkansas if it can be worked out.
“If they feel like I’m good enough to play both baseball and football, I might try it,” he said, “and if not I’ll just go with it. … Some people say I’m better at football, but I think I like baseball.”
Braylon Bishop is not the only elite athlete in his extended family – far from it, in fact. An older brother, Cedric Harris, played baseball at LSU and another older brother, Tahinick Bishop, plays football at Louisiana-Monroe. Cousin LaDarrius Bishop plays football at Arkansas and another cousin, Jaden Hill, is a pitcher at LSU.
“They’ve had a big impact on my life, just me playing with them when I was younger, and being able to see good pitching from them before I saw good pitching from (players) my age,” he said. “I developed faster than everybody else, just being able to see those curveballs before they came and with my running, just getting (around) the bases faster.”
Nick Bishop told PG that when he and Braylon go to all these different events and places, he often asks his son if he’s nervous. Braylon will always say no, he’s not nervous and Nick thinks he’s that way because he had the opportunity to watch his older brothers and cousins perform unflinchingly while he was still a youngster.
“He watched (them) go through all this other stuff, and it’s kind of like ‘been there, done that’ because he was there,” Nick said. “So, that helped him a whole lot.”
Nick played baseball, basketball and football in high school but not at an elite enough level to continue those pursuits in college.
“They remind me of that constantly,” he said with a laugh. “They’ll say, Dad, we’re better than you, but that’s OK. … It’s a blessing and it makes me proud because I had something to with all of them. It might have just been watching or giving them a ride someplace or whatever. But it’s been fun watching them through their journeys and it’s been a blessing.”
So yes, Braylon Bishop’s journey has led him back to the PG Jr. National Showcase for a second straight year and it seems certain it will continue next summer at the 2020 PG National Showcase and beyond. It’s something both father and son are looking forward to.
“You’re always wondering about the other kids, their work ethic, what they did to get here, what events they go to,” Nick said. “You get to brainstorm when you get to meet different parents and kids and see what they do to get better. Hopefully we can share some stuff with them that will help them on their journey and we can take some stuff from them that will help us on our journey.”