COMPTON, Calif. -- What a great event to showcase the Southern California amateur baseball talent.
Many scouts were at hand, taking notes on all of the great talent on display this great Saturday afternoon. This event marks the start of many pre-draft workouts to come, leading up to the MLB First-Year Player Draft. 200+ representative scouts from all of the Major League clubs were in attendance to witness the first glimpse of the 2011 graduating class.
"It's a great opportunity to come to a Major League facility and be able to show your stuff in front of hundreds of scouts," said Frank Marcos, senior director of the MLB Scouting Bureau. "A lot of kids don't get that type of opportunity when they play their regular high school games because there might just be a few scouts. But here, they have a great facility and a venue to show off their stuff."
The participants were hand-picked by the MLB Scouting Bureau, with players coming from as far north as Modesto, as far south as San Diego and as far east as Palm Desert. It included some of the top prospects in the area, such as left-hander Henry Owens and infielders Christian Lopes, Phil Evans and Travis Harrison.
That's not to mention the sons of a few notable athletes -- Trevor Gretzky, the son of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, and Ryan Garvey, the son of former All-Star first baseman Steve Garvey.
"It's awesome to come out and see where you're at next to all the other Southern California kids," said Gretzky, a first baseman at Oaks Christian High School. "I didn't expect this many scouts, but you just have to play baseball. It's just awesome being out here on the field with all these guys."
"It's great," said Ryan Garvey, who plays third base and left field at Palm Desert High School. "I get to see all my buddies who I played with in travel ball. Its great because it's all the best athletes from around Southern California."
The participants ar the event were dividid into two team, representing the North and South, and performed various drill in the morning. They ran the 60-yard dash and took batting and fielding practice before playing in controlled game with wood bats later in the afternoon.
The event couldn't have been held without the support of MLB's Urban Youth Academy, which hosted the showcase for the fifth consecutive year. And now with more Urban Youth Academies on the way, included a completed one in Houston under the leadership of MLB's executive vice president of baseball development Jimmie Lee Solomon, the MLB Scouting Bureau is excited about hosting similar events at Academy venues in other cities in the future.
"As Urban Youth Academies around the country develop, we certainly want to tap into those resources from the scouting bureau's point of view for events like this," Marcos said. "They've done a good job with these Urban Youth Academies, and I know that as they go forward they'll continue to improve them. Jimmie Lee Solomon has done a great job, and it's helped scouts, because now we can go into areas where scouts didn't go as much and now have facilities to run camps."
