Common sense tells you there’s a larger interest, per capita, in high school baseball here on the Big Island, because there are few communities the size of Hilo that have churned out as many major league draftees as has our city by the bay.
There were seven Hilo products playing on professional baseball contracts at the start of the season, led by Kolton Wong, selected in the first round of the Major League Draft by the St. Louis Cardinals back in 2011. Two years later he was in The Show and his trail to the Big Leagues hasn’t been lost on others.
Just recently, younger brother Kean Wong was finally called up to the big team by the Tampa Bay Rays, who left him in AAA for a few years, even after he kept making All-Star teams, winning MVP awards and doing pretty much anything you would think would prompt a call up.
These players are followed by local fans at the high school level, but today we have a true rarity, a pitcher who signed a New York Yankees contract without ever playing high school baseball on the Big Island, or anywhere else.
“I was always told, ‘If you have the talent, they will find you,’” said Edgar Barclay, a 21 year-old left-handed pitcher and Hilo boy in the Yankees organization who will make a full out attempt to leave a favorable impression in spring training in Tampa, Fla.
He recently concluded his first season, splitting time in two Florida rookie leagues, a total of just 12 games, but in his 10 games with Yankees East in the Gulf Coast League, he got in 21 1/3 innings, struck out 24 and walked just five.
Call it a good start.
“I love this organization,” Barclay said the other day in a telephone conversation, “and, yes, I think there is something about the organization, the tradition, that is real, it’s very professional and very tradition-bound.”
One of the first things they tell the rookies has to do with appearance — clean shaven, no longhairs, dress up when you travel — the basics of the Yankee Way.
“I’m all in,” Barclay said, “I’ll do whatever they want, I’m just so happy I got the opportunity.”
Barclay is a smart guy who played all his cards just right. He was home schooled, using a nationally recognized study program, and at the end of an early year of schooling, his test scores allowed him to skip a grade, then a couple years later, he did it again, skipping two grades by the time he was technically eligible for high school, but the public schools in Hilo didn’t accept those test findings, meaning he would have to drop back two grades.
Instead, he spent a year at St. Joseph, played basketball, and stuck with summer ball and traveling teams. One of those teams was a Kaha Wong — the brilliant hitting instructor and coach whose sons and all others here know well — club that took in Barclay and flew him to showcase events in California, where he was seen by scouts. There was interest, so he enrolled at Central Arizona Community College, then later briefly attended Gateway Community College in Phoenix before being drafted in the 15th round.
We have baseball players here who make high school all-star teams, play in college and still don’t get drafted that high, but this is a different case.
For one, he’s smart, and, as much as anything else, that’s been the key to his early baseball success. His father Chuck, who only gets ribbed about being named Charles Barclay a few times every day, gave his son some fundamental pitching lessons and Eddie took it from there.
He’s had a truck load of help, mentors surrounded him here, like Eric Kurosawa, who coached the Pony team that went to the organization’s World Series back in 2013. It was there, in a quarterfinal seven-inning game, that Barclay stuck out 20 of his 21 outs in what turned out to be a loss.
Teased about that, Barclay was asked what happened? Only 20 strikeouts?
“The other one grounded out to second,” he said.
All along, his efforts have been marked by high strikeout and low walks totals for a left-handed pitcher who throws in the low 90s.
That’s going to attract attention.
“Don’t give me credit for him, I was just there,” said Kurosawa, “we tried to help him where we could, but he had a good curveball even back then and he could spot his pitches — he had that when we got him.”
Barclay was one of six players on that Pony team who have found their careers extended through college competition, but so far, Barclay is the only one who signed a pro contract.
He graduated high school when he was 16, enrolled at the University of Hawaii part time, to save his eligibility in case he needed it down the road, and that summer he pitched for Wong’s travel team.
He built his velocity up to the 93 mph range and got an offer to play at Cal-State Bakersfield, all expenses paid. Letters began arriving from MLB organizations indicating their interest, and at some point he learned about Driveline Baseball, a newer training program in Seattle, heavy on analytics and scientific calculation that explores movement patterns, analyzes strengths and weaknesses and then floods the instruction with technique in strength condition, arm deceleration and more.
Driveline is a 21st century way to teach, heavy on computer models that today’s athletes seem to grasp almost immediately.
That is certainly the case with Barclay, who has trained there weeks a time and expects to do more when his schedule opens up.
As the old African saying goes, “It takes a village,” to raise a child, and in this case, Barclay has used a village of help to get him where he is.
“If he was to be asked who helped him,” said his father Chuck, “he would name a long list of every youth coach he had, as well as people like Kent Ouchi (former president of youth organization for the Waiakea Pirates), and Craig Kawaguchi (PONY league president), it would take him a long time to name everyone.”
His mother Mo (Mo’uga, from Western Samoa), has been there every step of the way, including the agreement to build a pitching mound in the backyard. She is currently proud of Edgar’s youngest brother Charlie, at Hilo High, hoping to play for the Vikings.
Stay with the me here, fathers, not every mother would see the wisdom in a backyard pitching mound.
It seems to have worked not just because they had a handy mound, rather because they had an athletic, intelligent son who realized how much he could improve by taking his pitching lessons to the backyard. Barclay was smart enough not to overwork himself, smart enough to listen to professionals about the finer aspects of pitching to make himself as ready as possible when those moments occurred that he took to the mound in a situation with scouts on hand, watching everything.
What they saw was surprisingly good mechanics from such a young pitcher. They saw a lefty breaking ball in the low 90s that could get people out, consistently, and at the end, the Yankees saw a contract that was missing only Barclay’s signature.
The future is wide open.
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