Bay State Games remain a local college showcase
The sun beat down on the artificial turf field at BC High’s Monan Park as temperatures soared into the 90s on Thursday. And the climate of on-the-field competition seemed just as heated. Yet Falmouth High’s Ayers Ball and Brett Summers, along with 21 teammates on the Southeast team, stuck it out with five other squads to complete Day 2 of the baseball showcase at the Bay State Games.
Ball and Summers, a rising junior and senior, respectively, were drenched in sweat as they came off the field following their second game of a doubleheader. Though the sun crept behind clouds as the day went on, the field still felt like a griddle.
Even while experiencing tunnel vision on the mound, Ball pitched three innings for the Southeast, and aided his cause with a hit, and Summers was steady at the plate and recorded a handful of excellent defensive plays at first base.
Since its inception in 1982, The Bay State Games still remain an Olympic-style competition, growing this year to include six regional teams competing across more than thirty sports.
But, in the ever-changing landscape of high school sports, it’s never too early for a studentathlete to grab a college coach’s eye. That was the biggest draw of the Games for Ball, Summers
and their teammates, even if it meant battling through a sweltering day.
“I’m really happy to be here,” Summers said. “I grew up in a house with a single mother, so I need to work [during summer]. That means I can’t play summer ball, but I thought this was a good place to get looked at.”
Instead of concluding with a bracket and a championship game, the showcase wraps up Friday with three more round-robin games. The team with the overall best record across five games earns the gold medal.
Metro head coach Steve Freker, the former Malden Catholic baseball coach who was inducted into 2023 Bay State Games Hall of Fame, understands that times have changed. In his 36th year coaching at the Bay State Games, Freker noted the Games was one of the first sanctioned Massachusetts sporting events that allowed high school athletes to gain college exposure.
“When we first started, we didn’t know how it was going to go,” Freker said. “There was a lot of interest. Word got out that it was a good opportunity at a nominal cost. Eventually, we realized that if [high schoolers] are here playing, the college coaches will want to come watch them. So, let’s really promote that.”
Despite the atmosphere shifting from the actual competition to a scouting showcase, Freker insisted the Games are still the same, as always.