FORT MYERS, Fla. – The 44 top prospects that occupy spots on the two rosters at this weekend’s 3rd annual Perfect Game Select Baseball Festival – along with their coaches and some of their family members – made their way to the Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida Friday afternoon.
It’s an annual outing now, one that many of the young players from the previous two years have identified as the highlight of the three-day event. So much so, in fact, that alumni of the first two Festivals are starting to return.
And, in fact, when this year’s players made their way to the second floor of the hospital to meet with some of the youngsters staying at the hospital, they were joined by Jovan Gill, a 2020 right-hander who participated in the first PG Select Festival in 2016.
Gill moved to Fort Myers about five weeks ago from Kansas City, Mo. – he is now a junior at Southwest Florida Christian Academy – and once he got settled in he sent a text to PG Select Baseball Festival organizer Ben Ford to see if he could be involved again this weekend.
“I said let’s get me out here,” Gill told PG Friday. “I wanted to see the kids again and come and show some support for them, and he said, ‘Go for it.’ I’m going to see the kids and go to the game (on Sunday) and hopefully even sing ‘God Bless America’ because I like singing a lot, but we’ll see about that.”
Jason Powella is the Lee (County) Health Foundation Senior Special Events Manager, and helps fund-raise for the entire Lee Health network, including the Golisano Children’s Hospital. He has served in that role all three years that PG has directed the proceeds from the Select Festival to the hospital in addition to the fund-raising efforts of the players.
“I think it has actually been an incredible fit,” he told PG Friday afternoon, shortly before the players arrived at Golisano. “We’ve been very fortunate to have each of these (players) who are coming to play at this (event) raise money on their own with their family and friends.”
This year’s participants had raised more than $30,000 as of Friday afternoon, a total that Powella expected to go up as the weekend progressed. He reported that the players have now raised more than $80,000 over the life of the three-year partnership.
On Friday, the prospects took the time to do some coloring that offered messages of support to the young patients while also signing and handing out baseballs. One group of players even asked some of the kids to sign their names under the bill of the players’ Festival caps, which was certainly a big deal for the Golisano kids.
“This is a very special part of the weekend,” Lorenzo Carrier, a 2021 outfielder from Bear, Del., who is on the Team Erickson roster for the event told PG. “Just to see these kids happy and coloring and stuff, I think it’s really good that we’re doing this with them.”
Grant Hussey, a 2021 first baseman and a U. of West Virginia commit from Washington, W.V., who is also on the Team Erickson roster, agreed.
“It’s a blessing seeing all these kids and just getting to know them a little bit,” He said. “This is the biggest thing that I’ve been looking forward to, and I think the game is going to be really fun, too.”
Perfect Game’s philanthropic efforts are centered on the battle against pediatric cancer. Fund-raising efforts have been directed toward Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego as part of the PG All-American Classic weekend and St. Jude Children’s Hospital as part of the summer-long WWBA national championships played in Atlanta.
As for this event, the Festival home page proclaims:
“For as proud as we are at Perfect Game to be able to showcase these young players on these platforms on both a national and global scale, we are more humbled and honored that the proceeds from this event benefit Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida.”
“I think it’s just incredible that at their young age that they feel it in their heart not only to continue to play the game that they love but they can also have the opportunity to give back to kids that are less fortunate and are sick in our hospital system,” Lee Health’s Powella said. “Even some of the players that played in year’s past have come back with the current teams to do a tour again and revisit some of the kids.”
Take a bow, Jovan Gill.
Fest prospects meet their head coaches
FORT MYERS, Fla. – After breakfast Friday morning at the event’s host hotel – the royal Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort and Spa in Bonita Springs – the Festival participants rode their bus north to the jetBlue Park Player Development complex where they were able to get in a two-hour practice session. They were also able to interact out on the field with their head coaches for the first time.
Former big-leaguers Scott Erickson and Tom Gordon combined to pitch 36 seasons at the major league level and were contemporaries. Gordon, nicknamed “Flash”, won 138 games and saved another 158 in 21 seasons (1988-2009) with eight teams (eight with the Royals) and Erickson won 142 games with six teams (seven with the Orioles) in 15 seasons (1990-2006).
“This is actually a great opportunity; I really look forward to working with the youth,” Erickson said shortly before joining Gordon to work with Festival pitchers Trenton Shaw, Christian Little and others during a short bullpen session.
“I was a pitching coach with the Cleveland Indians in the minors for a couple of years, and it’s great to see that all these young, athletic guys are fired-up to be baseball players when they grow up,” he continued. “I think it’s really important and great for the game of baseball to have such a good following and a dedicated system to try to promote the best players in the country at an early age to really get them focused on playing baseball.”
Erickson, a right-hander like Gordon, enjoyed his finest season in 1991 when he won 20 games and finished second in AL Cy Young Award balloting while pitching for the Twins; he threw 11 complete games with the Orioles in 1998.
“I love coaching and helping out where I can and I love baseball more than anything,” he said. “I’ve been involved with it my whole life, basically since little league at 7 years old. … Pitching is such an important part of the game and it’s really important to develop good mechanics at an early age. … We really want to help them use their bodies and protect their arms.”
Many of these elite players have been working with their own coaches at home for several years now, so neither Erickson or Gordon are going to spend this short weekend trying to change a player’s approach or try out any radical experiments. The Select Fest is a nationally televised all-star game, after all, and it’s all about having some fun.
Erickson told PG that he plays a lot of golf these days which satisfies a little bit of his competitive hunger but admitted it felt good to be back out on a regulation major league field. Even though he’ll spend the holiday weekend hanging out with teenaged prospects and not bonified big-leaguers (yet), a ballplayer is a ballplayer, to his way of thinking.
“A lot of (people) ask if you miss baseball but you don’t miss the game as much as you miss the guys,” he said. “You spend so much time together and the camaraderie and the fun that you have with your teammates. It’s the same thing once you get around a group like this where everybody’s comfortable with each other,” he concluded. “It’s a great game and I love being around it.”
Gordon, a three-time All-Star during his career, is the father of the Mariners’ All-Star centerfielder Dee Gordon and rising Twins shortstop prospect Nicholas Gordon (known as Nick), a first-round pick of the Twins in 2014 and a 2013 Perfect Game All-American. When Nick was 14 years old, he played for a travel team called the Florida Flash, which was coached by his dad, Flash Gordon.
“You see it that these kids now are starting to get a good grasp on what it is that they do very well,” the elder Gordon said. “You help them by enhancing what they can do and by giving them information about what to look for down the line. When I get a chance to be around kids – it doesn’t matter what age – I’m trying to see what I can do to help them and give them some words of encouragement.
“They ask a lot of questions, and that’s what you always want,” he added. “I’ve always told them that no question is a bad question … so just ask all the questions that you want.”
Gordon acknowledged that an all-star event like the PG Select Baseball Festival puts “fun” at the forefront but he also wants the young prospects to understand that the Fest provides them with an opportunity to showcase their talents in front of a national television audience.
It has always been important for an ex-major-leaguer like Gordon to be able to give back to the game by staying involved with youngsters like the 44 assembled here this weekend, so when PG’s Ben Ford asked him if would be interested in coaching one of the teams, he said it was a like a dream come true.
“I’ve always enjoyed what Perfect Game has done and how they recognize the kids and give them an opportunity to showcase their skills,” he concluded. “I tell them to take what you can from this and apply it to the next day you go out there on the field,” Gordon said. “Hopefully, that helps you down the line.”