Perfect Game USA and the Future of Baseball: How the Remaking of Youth Scouting Affects the National Pastime (review)

Les Edgerton makes a convincing case for how one organization has changed the process by which high school players get on the radar of colleges and professional teams. Perfect Game USA is the brainchild of Jerry Ford (not the late president), who opened an indoor baseball facility in his hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and began holding player “showcases” in 1993, at first locally and eventually nationally. The book is as much about Ford as it is about his national program and the growing industry of which it is a part. Perfect Game provides venues through which college coaches and Major League Baseball scouts can observe and evaluate the best high school baseball talent in the country. Perfect Game holds showcases throughout the nation, including the annual World Wood Bat Association Championships in Jupiter, Florida.

Edgerton lauds the program throughout the book, despite his claims that companies like Perfect Game (Area Code and Team One are others noted in the book) are making high school baseball increasingly irrelevant and youth select, or “travelling,” ball increasingly relevant. Edgerton says Perfect Game showcases give scouts and coaches a realistic portrayal of players in majorleague conditions. The use of wooden bats is one way showcases simulate major-league play. Another is the use of a “flat-seam” ball, similar to a majorleague baseball and unlike the higher-seamed balls used in youth and high school (86). On the other hand, Edgerton admits that one drawback to Perfect Game showcases is not allowing walks. “Once a batter has three balls, the pitcher must throw only fastballs until the at-bat is concluded by either a strike-out, hit or ground- or fly-out” (93). Thus, players have no way of showing (and scouts have no way of knowing) their knowledge of the strike zone, a knowledge which Edgerton admits is crucial to a scout with a Billy Beane-like philosophy. But such a rule has not deterred scouts and coaches from using Perfect Game showcases as a foundation for their player selections.

The emergence of showcases is causing repercussions for high school baseball programs, which Edgerton claims have “become almost irrelevant” and where talent for the most part “isn’t all that good” (39). Select baseball has taken over as the destination for the best youth players, and some of the nation’s more prominent select programs (such as the East Cobb program in Georgia) feed into Perfect Game showcases and participate in Perfect Game tournaments.

Edgerton says Perfect Game showcases have also changed the way scouts and college coaches seek talent. Gone are the days when a major-league scout journeyed through the byways of America to observe a high school or town team phenom. Now Perfect Game can bring the talent to the scout or coach at its showcases; or the scout or coach can check the players’ showcase statistics on Perfect Game’s website, PGCrossChecker.com. Edgerton says that’s one of many services provided by Perfect Game, which has grown from the single indoor facility (which Ford still operates in Cedar Rapids) to a multi-faceted company. Besides PGCrossChecker.com, which has statistics and information on more than 25,000 players, Perfect Game also operates its own select leagues in Iowa, California, and Florida. Florida is also the location of Perfect Game’s baseball training academy. In addition, Perfect Game has its own sports medicine division and a nonprofit foundation to promote baseball to inner-city children.

As Perfect Game has evolved, so has the entire select game and showcase industry. The number of select baseball programs has exploded during the past decade, and Perfect Game has been among those to reap the benefits, partnering with Rawlings Sporting Goods, AFLAC, and ESPN. Rawlings provides equipment and other support, and AFLAC sponsors an annually televised game (the AFLAC Classic) featuring players selected by Perfect Game. Edgerton...