CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa – Three generations of Van Scoyoc men were in attendance at Perfect Game Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium at various times over the weekend, either watching, coaching or participating in the 17th annual Perfect Game Midwest Top Prospect Showcase.
The patriarch, Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Hall-of-Famer Jim Van Scoyoc from baseball-crazy Norway, Iowa, was on hand, as was his son Aaron Van Scoyoc, who played three seasons (1989-91) in the New York Yankees’ farm system. The elder Van Scoyocs were at PG Field with Aaron’s two sons, Spencer and Connor, who were performing at the PG Midwest Top.
While Jim and Aaron enjoyed their time on some pretty big stages one and two generations ago, this weekend belonged to Spencer and Connor and, more specifically, to Spencer. The 6-foot-4, 195-pound left-handed pitcher and left-handed swinging outfielder is Perfect Game’s No. 1-ranked Iowa prospect in the class of 2016 (No. 173 nationally) and is proud to be carrying on the Van Scoyoc legacy created by his grandfather and father.
“It gives me something to always strive for because it’s going to take forever for me to get up to the level that those guys are at,” Spencer Van Scoyoc told PG during a break in the action this weekend. “I’m going to keep working hard every day and hopefully I’ll get there someday.”
He seems headed in the right direction. The PG Midwest Top was his 27th PG event since 2011 – that total includes a combined six seasons in the PG Spring and Fall Wood Bat Leagues – and has been included on the prestigious Top Prospect List at seven PG showcases since being named at the 2012 PG Midwest Underclass Showcase.
It seems certain Van Scoyoc will make it four-for-four in PG Midwest Showcase TPL’s after his pitching performance Sunday (he was on the TPL at the 2012 and ’13 Midwest Underclass and at last year’s Midwest Top.). He worked three wildly effective innings Sunday afternoon, using an 88 mph fastball and 73 mph curve to strike out six of the first seven batters he faced and nine of the 11 he faced overall; he allowed just one hit.
“Being out in front of everybody, and everybody out here watching you, you just try to keep stepping it up,” he said of his showcase success. “You play better against better competition, and when you have people pushing you and a lot of people watching you, it just gets me going a little bit more.
“I had ASU watch me at a lot of the Perfect Game showcases and that really helped me out with the recruiting process,” he continued. “Hopefully, now, I can get out in front of some of the pro scouts.”
When Spencer was younger he was also a pretty good basketball player and he and his parents were involved in the travel basketball scene, but he soon came to realize – like just about everyone else in the Van Scoyoc family – his future was in baseball.
Aaron and Jim Van Scoyoc were very hands-on when working with Spencer in the early years of his development, but in the past year or so other people have become more involved. Perfect Game scout and instructor Jason Piddington and former Upper Iowa University and minor league left-hander Travis Mueller have worked with him recently. He also received input from others while in attendance at the Area Code Games early this month and at the Tournament of Stars in June.
“He’s getting to hear it from people at a higher level,” Aaron Van Scoyoc said this weekend. “The big thing with Spencer now … is his body is so immature. What happens when his body decides to mature? Does he get over that hump of sitting at 88, 89 (mph) and now all of a sudden he’s 90, 91, 92 when he gets so much stronger?”
Aaron Van Scoyoc’s uncle – Spencer’s grand uncle – is former MLB All-Star right-hander Mike Boddicker from Norway (Jim Van Scoyoc is married to the former Sheryl Boddicker, Mike’s sister). The Baltimore Orioles selected Boddicker in the sixth-round of the 1978 MLB June Amateur Draft and he went on to win 134 games in a 14-year big-league career – the first nine with the Orioles – with an All-Star selection in 1984.
Boddicker was the Most Valuable Player of the 1983 American League Championship Series while with the O’s, pitching a complete-game, five-hit shutout with 14 strikeouts in a win over the Chicago White Sox. He also picked up a complete-game victory in the 1983 World Series, which the Orioles took from the Philadelphia Phillies, four games to one.
“Growing up, my Uncle Mike was my idol,” Aaron Van Scoyoc said. “I remember as a kid writing him letters and then going to visit every time he’d come into Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee or Minnesota – that was our family vacation.”
Former big-league catcher and manager Bruce Kimm was a neighbor of the Van Scoyocs in Norway, and Tyson Kimm, a former minor league player himself and current Perfect Game vice president, was a childhood friend. Norway, Iowa, and baseball have long had a close and comfortable historical relationship.
Spencer Van Scoyoc is beginning his senior year at Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School, and is coming off a summer high school season in which the highly ranked J-Hawks finished 29-8 after being upset in the first-round of the Iowa Class 4A (big school) state playoffs.
He was named Class 4A First Team All-State by the Iowa Newspaper Association after a season in which he hit .407 (37-for-91) with 16 doubles, a triple, two home runs, 17 RBI and 26 runs scored; he was 5-1 with a 0.64 ERA, allowing three earned runs on 16 hits with 44 strikeouts and 15 walks in 33 innings pitched.
“It’s been kind of a new start for Jefferson baseball these past couple of years,” Van Scoyoc said of his high school experiences. “We picked a bad time to have our worse game, but we had a great season and it was really a lot of fun with all the guys; we have a lot of great players coming back for next year.”
One of the players returning for the J-Hawks is Connor Van Scoyoc, a 6-foot-1, 160-pound 2018 right-hander and third baseman who is starting his sophomore year at Jefferson; he saw some playing time with the varsity this summer as a freshman. Connor is the No. 1-ranked prospect from Iowa in his class and is ranked No. 70 nationally.
Aaron Van Scoyoc, who played collegiately at Kirkwood Community College and Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids before the Yankees drafted him in the 21st round of the 1989 MLB Draft out of the U. of Arkansas-Fort Smith, helped guide Spencer through the college recruiting process and is now helping Connor. He calls the difference between his own recruitment process and that of his sons “day and night” but also has found it rewarding.
“The neat thing about it with my kids is they’re asking me to go throw batting practice or go work out. I’m not asking them to go do it or telling them they need to do it, they’re coming to me,” he said. “It’s the old saying, ‘When the have-to’s turn into the want-to’s’, and we’re now into the ‘want-to’s’, which is really nice.”
Spencer Van Scoyoc is continuing to work on his game this fall as a member of PG Iowa Select, the third year he has been involved with the group of top Iowa prospects. He has been named to five PG all-tournament teams with either PG Iowa Select Navy or PG Iowa Select Black and was the Most Valuable Pitcher at the 2014 PG WWBA Central Labor Day Classic (Underclass) playing for PGIS Navy.
This summer, he took a little bit of time away from his Jefferson teammates to attend the Perfect Game National Showcase in Fort Myers, Fla., and the Tournament of Stars in Cary, N.C.; he just recently returned home from Long Beach, Calif., where he took part in the Area Code Games. Simply put, Spencer Van Scoyoc has logged a lot of frequent flier miles in the past three months.
“It’s really fun, not just seeing the country, but you get to meet a lot of great guys,” he said. “You get to see potentially who some of the top draft picks are – the best players in the nation – and you get to meet them, and a lot of them are really great guys.”
Although he hates to hear it, Jim Van Scoyoc is considered a legend around the streets of Norway after leading now-shuttered Norway High School to 12 Iowa state championships – spring, summer and fall – from 1972 through 1990. Norway HS’s closing was the subject of the 2007 movie “The Final Season” in which actor Powers Booth portrayed Jim Van Scoyoc.
Norway, with a population of between 500 and 600 people and located just west of Cedar Rapids, has produced a disproportionate number of professional baseball players through the years, including the big-leaguers Boddicker, Bruce Kimm and Hal Trosky.
Right-hander Dick McVay was a fourth-round pick right out of Norway High in 1968 and reached the Triple-A level before retiring; he pitched three seasons (1968, ’69 and ’71) with the Class A Cedar Rapids Cardinals.
Spencer and Connor Van Scoyoc have had the opportunity to work with Boddicker a little bit, both with their hitting and pitching. Boddicker lives in the Kansas City area and returns to Eastern Iowa frequently for family get-togethers and functions, and that’s when the brothers get to spend a little time with the former big-leaguer.
“They’re always on me to keep working on stuff and getting better,” Spencer said of his family members. “They’re always telling me stuff to help me out – technique-wise and mentally – and they’ve pretty much taught me everything I know.”
So here was Spencer Van Scoyoc this weekend, in the company of his granddad, dad and younger brother, taking part in his fourth PG Midwest Showcase at a minor league stadium not far from his home and about three blocks from his high school. It just made sense for him to be here again, as his baseball journey really begins to build some traction.
“Someone new could be here this weekend to watch him play, and it just takes that one person,” Aaron Van Scoyoc said. “I know there are a number of (MLB) organizations that obviously like him – a lot – and you never know who’s going to be here. You hope that ‘right’ person is here, if he chooses to go that path, anyway.”