ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – So OK, it’s not exactly one of those “twin sons of different mothers” scenarios but the parallels in the present are paired with all the appropriate subtleties of the past and future even if their high school decisions took vastly different routes.

Jackson Ferris, the 6-foot-4, 190-pound southpaw out of small-town North Carolina, and Brock Porter, the 6-foot-4, 205-pound righty from a northern suburb of Metro Detroit, both carry themselves in a way that demands respect. That was noticeable even before either one had delivered a single pitch under the domed roof of the Rays’ Tropicana Field this week.

“I felt good. It’s always fun coming to these to showcases, so it was good getting loose and playing on this awesome field,” Porter told PG. “It was a lot of fun.”

It was also a 9 a.m. game in a big league stadium with hundreds of scouts scattered throughout, all of whom were busy jotting down their observations while occasionally exchanging words with the scout sitting the closest to them.

These are not fans like the ones that can be found at PG tournament championship games, these are working scouts doing their job; the atmosphere isn’t exactly electric. That requires the young prospect to bring his own energy which, of course, is seldom a problem

“Getting warm and kind of creating your own mindset of the atmosphere you want (is important) and that’s what I do,” Porter said. “I don’t really care who’s out there, who’s talking, who’s watching the game – I just play my game.”

Brock Porter, a Clemson commit and the son of Todd and Michel Porter, calls Milford, Mich., home and this fall he’ll be a senior at national prep power Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Prep in the north Detroit suburbs. Unlike Ferris, Porter didn’t have to leave home to discover his roots but has still managed to get around and see the sights.

Porter has been rostered at 24 PG events just since 2018 and has been named to a PG all-tournament team 10 times, mostly while playing with the Tri-State Arsenal. He won a PG WWBA championship playing with the Arsenal 2022 Scout Team at the 2018 14u Memorial Day Classic at Lake Point. He was also with Motor City Hit Dogs teams that won a pair of PG Super25 championships in 2017.

The biggest highlights of Porter’s prep years from a team perspective haven’t come out of his Perfect Game experiences but rather his experiences playing with the Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Eaglets the last three years (2020 being an outlier, of course).

St. Mary’s has been the most dominant prep program in the Upper Midwest over that span with multiple Michigan state championships. With a roster that included 13 D-I commits – including top 2021 shortstop Alex Mooney, the MVP of the 2020 PG All-American Classic – the Eaglets finished 43-1 this past spring and in the No. 2 position in the PG High School Final Top 50 National Rankings.

“It was unbelievable. Our team was just stacked with talent and we all just had a lot of fun,” Porter said. “We just played well together and we had so much fun, so it was a great ride...Everybody meshed really well and we had a good coaching staff; it was a good group of guys.”

Come summertime, the boys from St. Mary’s prep are more than ready to get out of their safe haven just north of the Detroit area and venture down south to see if they can hold their own against the heavyweights from the sunbelt.

Because of how hard the northern players push themselves during what is often a compacted and intense spring season, Porter doesn’t feel like they’re lacking for a thing on the southern travel ball circuit. In fact, they’ve found they can fit right in most instances, and Porter most recently pitched for the powerhouse Canes National 17u at last week’s WWBA 17u National Championship in Marietta, Ga.

Even as a freshman back home in Milford, Porter was a bit of a taller kid but tended to shade on the skinny side. So, as he matured and began growing into his body, weight gain became his highest priority, and he began training with the Eric Cressey program in West Palm Beach to accelerate the process.

It seems to be working. When he was at the PG 16u National Elite Championship in Hoover, Ala., just a year ago, Porter was listed at 6-foot-3, 185 pounds; he’s now at 6-3, 205.

“Gaining weight was the biggest thing for me,” he said. “I continually have to get stronger-bigger-faster and just overall better at the game and hopefully continue that into the next year. I don’t think I’ve peaked-out at all; I think I have a lot more that I can bring to the table.”

Like each and every one of the other 300-plus prospects in attendance here, Porter came in looking to prove to any doubters who may still remain that he deserves a spot on one of the two PG All-American Classic rosters that will soon be announced for the Aug. 22 game at Petco Park in San Diego.

Based on his lofty No. 7 ranking coming in and now with a stellar National outing to back up that ranking, Porter’s selection is likely a formality. But the kid from the land of the Great Lakes isn’t going to assume a trip to California’s Pacific Coast is a given.

He’s got eyes; the talent here is, in his word, “amazing.” Porter knew his only course of action was to be on constant attack, dominate the would-be hitters he’d face and show everyone what and who he is. “I came in with the mindset of doing that and I tried to just show who am,” he said.

They’re all studs, he continued, and everyone who took the field at Tropicana didn’t leave anything in the dugout. They push each other to get better and Porter said facing the best hitters in his class only makes him better at the end of the day. It never hurts to go out and just see firsthand what the other guy has to offer.

“You learn so much from these guys,” Porter said. “Everybody is from different areas, different states … and I think we all make each other better. I learn so much from everybody, all the pitchers and even hitters, too.”

Jackson Ferris and Brock Porter, two of the best three or four pitchers from either side in the class of 2022, got to enjoy being teammates for the Canes National 17u at last week’s PG WWBA 17u National Championship and were pitchers in arms for PG Navy over four consecutive innings at the PG National Showcase.

Those are two of the biggest upperclass stages Perfect Game can offer a 17u prospect in the same summer and an experience they will hold dear to their baseball-loving hearts for the rest of their lives.

“This is a great experience; playing at the Rays stadium is awesome,” Ferris said with a tone of appreciation in his voice. “I hope to do this in the future and end up playing in every MLB stadium that I possibly can.”

Porter could only smile: “This whole summer, this whole circuit, has been crazy. Being around good competition is always a plus...I’ve already met a bunch of new kids [here] that I hadn’t met before and hopefully I get a good [scouting report] write-up and people like who they see.”

You can count on that.