Seventh-grade Jordans never pan out

Still, Bailey is the poster child of early development leading to over-hype. I remember Season on the Brink talked about how he was this 6-foot kid who was already dunking in games and how he was looking like a young man in eighth grade and how he already had strong fundamentals beyond his years, etc.

Well, when Bailey was at Indiana, what was he, 6-2? He was no longer better than average athletically and because he was so advanced fundamentally as an 8th grader, he had relatively little room for improvement in terms of his skills and his understanding of the game. So the average 8th grader improved more in fundamental skills during high school than he did.

It added up to Bobby Knight being duped by the same thing we all get duped by with premature kids.

I think it's important to note that it doesn't necessarily happen that way. Lebron James kept developing and now he's a basketball machine.

Also, limited physical development beyond 8th grade doesn't mean one won't continue to develop as a player. I played against a guy in high school who was 6-foot tall as a 12-year old and would strike everybody out throwing 75 or something absurd like that then he'd hit the ball over the light standards if anybody dare pitch it to him. He was a phenom, pure and simple. When he was 13, he was 6-2, throwing 85 and nobody could touch him.

Well, his senior year in high school, he was still 6-2, he could maybe touch 90 with his fast ball. He was drafted very late, went to college, learned how to pitch with finesse, was the winning pitcher in a CWS-clinching win, then was a third round draft pick. He was still a finesse pitcher in the majors and won two games in a world series to highlight a respectable career and the kid who used to hit them over the lights in little league got his first two hits since high school in the World Series (if anybody knows who I'm talking about you get a cookie).

Anyway, here's the point: Sometimes the phenoms do develop in one way or another and I would dare say there are far more high-level pros who DID physically dominate their youth leagues than those who didn't.

I actually think that could be a good topic to be covered next time somebody calls in with their "My 12 year old is the next Babe Ruth" story. That kid could provide some local, current context for an interesting story about phenoms and what happens to them.

 

I have way too much time on my hands.

Went back through baseball reference looking for AL pitchers in the DH era who won 2 games in a single world series, had 2 hits in the world series and pitched in college.

I didn't find anyone who fit that description. I'm stumped.

Edit: Oops, got it. Accidentally skipped the one WS I was looking for, of course. I won't say to let those who want to actually guess get there's in.

 

I agree that the majority of pros probably did dominate -- or at least really stand out -- during their youths.

But for every one youth star who makes it, there's about a million who are selling insurance.

 

Speaking of too much time on my hands, I remember Kalen Pimentel, that mammoth kid from Thousand Oaks, Calif., just dominating the LLWS in 2005. I was certain he could hit the ball longer than I could at 12. So I Google his name and find that he's playing for Rancho Buena Vista HS.

His 2008-09 stats: 13 games, 19 ABs, .263 avg., 5 H, 4 RBI, 0 HR

 

Chad Ogea

 

Where do I mail the cookie?

 

When I was in 8th grade, decades ago, at a small parochial school, one of my best friends was one of those guys who grows to be 6-2, 175 at the age of 12. He had been 5-8 at the age of 9, so he didn't just rocket up all at once.

He started setting scoring records in 5th grade. By the time he got to be an 8th grader, he had a high game of 36 (a big deal in a 24-minute game). We had a real good team, we were 12-2 or something like that.

As the season wore down, our coach scheduled a game against the best public school team in the metro area. They had a kid who was setting records too, although he was a 7th grader, not 8th, and he was 6-5, not 6-2. This didn't matter anyway because the city schools ran on a "varsity/JV" setup: if you were one of the 12 best players in the school, you were on the "varsity" no matter what grade you were in.

So our 8th grade team was matched up against their varsity. Our guy starts scoring, and their guy does too. We get to halftime and the city kids are up by 8-10 points. As usual, as a backup power forward, I get in for about 3 minutes (which was fine; the other guys were way better). Third quarter, we narrow the gap a little, down to 4 or something like that.

Fourth quarter begins, they're up 42-38 or some such. Our guy has about 15. The other guy is in the low 20s. First shot our guy takes, the other dude bolo-punches it out to midcourt, springs after it like a rocket, and in about three strides, lays it down into the basket (at that time, dunking was illegal).

This happens ten times in a row. He alternates tomahawk overhead blocked shots and stealing the ball clean from our terror-stricken guards, but they all end the same way, with this guy driving full court for a breakaway layup. On the last, in the final 10 seconds of the game, instead of laying it into the basket, the dude slams home a thunderous two-hand dunk, which is waved off by the refs on a technical foul. Final score, 70-40 (we hit the two FTs on the technical). He ends up with 44 points, a city record.

You never heard of the guy on our team. He never started a basketball game in high school. Quit growing at 6-2. Ended up having a decent college football career at a Division III school, but that was it for him in organized sports.

You heard of the guy on the other team.

 

Moses Malone?

 

John Stockton?

 

Unemployed Sports Reporter
123 Future English Teacher Ln.
Montezuma, Georgia 31063

 

Dajuan Wagner was a kid I first read about (in a national pub, no less) when he was in sixth grade. He made the NBA, which is more than roughly 99.9999999 who ever lace up a pair of sneakers in middle school accomplished, but he was never God's gift to the game.

And Schea Cotton is one of the first youngsters I can remember appearing on the cover of SI. Never made it to UCLA, flamed out at Alabama.

Anyone remember when Dermarr Johnson was going to forego his final two years of high school to go pro? Oy.

 

Junior high leagues are 90 percent about who has the most players who have hit puberty. That is true to some extent in high school ball too (well, not who's reached puberty, more like who has graduated from it). There are those rogue programs that like to "redshirt" players so they can have 19-year-old seniors...