A View from the Top

On a Saturday in mid-January, a vibrant blue dominated the sky and the temperature – somewhere in the low 60s – made that sweater, carried along just in case, completely unnecessary. 

Six of the Peninsula’s best players gathered to usher in a new era with a photo shoot and to unofficially kick off a new high school baseball season. From atop the College of San Mateo campus, with the entire Peninsula – from San Francisco International Airport to the San Mateo Bridge and even farther to the north and south – they met up on a day when the shirt-sleeve weather served as a reminder of why high school baseball remains king in these parts.

“We don't have to stay inside and use indoor facilities,” says Aragon senior Josh Jacobs, a Claremont McKenna College commit. “We can go out to the field in January, while it’s negative degrees somewhere else. The Bay Area has the best weather, probably, in the nation. So, yeah, that really contributes a lot to our development and being able to practice.”

It partially explains why places like California, Texas and Florida dominate the high school baseball landscape. Still, that only tells part of the story.

Sure, the year-round climate lends itself to making the Peninsula a high school baseball hotbed, but the area’s baseball reputation comes courtesy of many factors that go beyond the weather, including a bevy of high-tech training facilities and so many legendary coaches who have passed along their knowledge of the game to generations of young ballplayers.

These coaches ply their craft in dozens of youth leagues, where a typical Saturday afternoon at the local ballpark is littered with tomorrow’s high school baseball standouts.

“Look around and there are so many good players,” said Half Moon Bay sophomore Riley Jackson, who last year made the jump from the Belmateo Babe Ruth League to varsity baseball as a freshman and is already getting college looks. “There are so many really good players around here.”

There’s a seemingly endless supply of talent.

Junior catcher Nata Plata of The King’s Academy sees himself being a part of that cycle. When his playing days end someday – and who knows how far his talent will take him – he wants to give back to the game.

“I want to coach,” said the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division’s reigning MVP. “That’s what I see myself doing. I want to stay in baseball and give back to the game by coaching.”

That pay-it-back mentality has kept a lot of former players – now coaches, including Bob Melvin, the manager of the San Francisco Giants and a Menlo-Atherton graduate – in the game.

The result is a 50-mile stretch – from the The City to the Silicon Valley – that has always been a baseball goldmine. This area has produced the likes of Barry Bonds, Gregg Jefferies, Jim Fregosi and Keith Hernandez, not to mention dozens of others who have had their cups of coffee. It’s also seen its share of top-notch programs like South San Francisco, El Camino, Serra and Saint Francis that have left their mark on the region.

It’s a tradition of which we’re proud.

It’s the reason for today’s launch of a new era for baseball coverage. PeninsulaPrepBaseball.com intends to celebrate the quality of today’s programs, while remembering how we arrived here. It will respect the way the game is played today while paying homage to its past and projecting where it might someday go.

If only things never changed. If used to be that our daily and weekly newspapers served this role by providing timely accounts of the local nines in places like Pacifica, Half Moon Bay and San Mateo.

Local journalism isn’t what it used to be so those days of running to the doorstep each day to pick up the morning edition are part of a bygone era and no longer the before-school breakfast routine. There’s no longer the manpower or newsprint to properly cover high school sports, baseball especially.

Consider us your online newspaper, the only media outlet dedicated exclusively to high school baseball on the Peninsula. We’re not naïve enough to believe we’re going to be perfect in our coverage, but we’ll be pretty good for three simple reasons: we love high school baseball. We’re from this area. And we have been schooled in – and lived through – its storied history.

Senior Ian Josephson said he felt the that tradition the minute he walked onto the Serra campus three years ago. Consider that a year later, he was using the locker once occupied by Tom Brady’s belongings and now the St. Mary’s College commit is considered one of the Peninsula’s best shortstops.

“You walk in there and Barry Bonds is on the wall,” he said. “You know right away you’ve got some big shoes to fill. … They're everywhere. Our locker room is just full of all the pro guys. We have a bunch of jerseys hanging up. It’s literally that extra reminder of how storied this is and exactly where you want to be. It’s always in front of you, just that extra goal.”

That’s the dream for many. And to be honest, it’s a lottery ticket at best. But it’s OK to aspire to get to the big leagues – especially when you’re young. If the Peninsula has proven nothing else in its baseball history, it’s that there is a chance to make it to the top with hard work and a little luck. 

And in the meantime, that means competing against some of the best players around.

That excites Mitty senior Waylon Walsh, a Santa Clara commit who was part of a CCS-Division I championship squad last year and knows the only thing harder than scaling the summit is remaining there.

“We've kind of got a target on our backs now, more so than last year,” he said. “That’s always fun. It means that we get to face the best guys all year.”

Take a cursory look at the West Catholic Athletic League and PAL standings and you won’t find many gimmes. That makes it more fun, says Quinten Marsh, a Stanford commit who is part of a Valley Christian roster that is loaded with Division I commits.

“Everyone just wants to be the best,” he said. “It's so competitive on and off the field. That just ends up breeding talent. And that breeds a lot of hard workers.”

That said, let the fun – and the hard work – begin.