FORT MYERS, Fla. – The coaching staff of the Jersey Boyz Scout Team out of Middlesex, N.J., expects each one of their players to get out on the field and make the grade with their athletic performances. The staff also expects every young ballplayer who desires to one day wear the Jersey Boyz uniform to get inside a classroom and make the grade with their respective academic prowess.
The Jersey Boyz Select Baseball organization has been in existence for about seven years and is under the direction of Manny Vargas and his sons Nico and Jose. Nico and Manny were on hand at the JetBlue Player Development Complex Monday morning directing the academic-minded Jersey Boyz Scout Team to a solid seeding in the 30-team playoffs at the 16u Perfect Game BCS Finals. The Boyz had clinched a playoff berth Sunday by winning their third pool-play game of the event.
Nico Vargas is an affable 26-year-old with a photographic memory when it comes to all things “Jersey Boyz Select Baseball.” He can readily rattle off the names of all nine 2014 Jersey Boyz graduates who moved on to play at the collegiate level and he talks excitedly about big-league pitcher Al Leiter’s association with the group. But before revealing anything about the program, he wants to make one thing abundantly clear.
“For us, it’s not about winning games and winning trophies. It’s about using baseball to achieve a next-level education,” Nico Vargas said. “… We bring the academic aspect into play and we make that a priority, and making that a priority is what (college) coaches love to see.
“Everybody can see a guy light up the radar gun but then their first question is, ‘What’s your GPA, what’s your SAT?’ The last thing they want is a fight with admissions to get the young man into school.”
A player is required to carry at least a 3.3 grade-point average before he will be considered for a spot on the Jersey Boyz Scout Team roster. A program with such a strong emphasis on academic achievement obviously faces a variety of challenges other programs may not face, the greatest being that players who fit the bill athletically will have to be turned away because their grades are lacking; every player is required to present their most recent report cards to the Jersey Boyz coaching staff.
Vargas shared a story about a young man from the Bronx who showed up for a tryout just last week and promptly began delivering fastballs that reached the mid-80s mph. Vargas was impressed until he asked the young prospects about his GPA, and when he was told it was 2.7, Vargas had to take a pass.
“We have a kid with like a 4.9 GPA and other kids that are way up there, but even the kids that aren’t as intellectually gifted, we’re all trying our best,” 2017 outfielder Michael Ukrainskyj said (Ukrainskyj carries a 4.1 GPA at Seton Hall Prep School, by the way). “We know (the coaches) will come down on us if we don’t perform in the classroom.”
This might seem to put the Jersey Boyz organization at a bit of a disadvantage when trying to attract high-level prospects from the same part of the country where established organizations like the Tri-State Arsenal and Diamond Jacks also mine for gold. But if the Boyz are disadvantaged, they didn’t show it during their pool-play schedule at the 16u PG BCS Finals, although their start was kind of a slow one.
They opened play Thursday with a 4-3 win over the GCBA Black Sox from Fort Myers and then lost 6-4 to eventual pool champion Palm Beach Select 16u out of Jupiter, Fla. Two straight shutout wins followed in succession on Saturday and Sunday: 5-0 over Team Elite South from Winder, Ga., and 13-0 over Crillos De PR from San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Boyz won Monday morning’s pool-play finale over Tampa-based Team Citius Warriors Bautista by forfeit with a posted scored of 7-0.
Ukrainskyj had only three hits in the Boyz’s first four games, but they were a grand slam and two triples; he drove in seven runs and scored five. 2018 outfielder/left-hander Jose Mercado was 4-for-8 (.500) with a triple, five RBI and four runs scored and 2017 catcher/corner-infielder Jesse Gerdes had five singles in 11 official at-bats (.455).
“I’ve never been to one of these (PG tournaments) before and It’s been good winning against some of these teams from the South,” Ukrainskyj said. “We wanted to stay aggressive because we kind of feel like we have to prove we have a team from New Jersey that can come in and play. We wanted to get the bats going early, and that was really it.”
2017 righty Matthew Ryan worked seven shutout innings in two appearances, giving up but two hits while striking out eight and walking four (he also hit two batters). 2017 right-hander Sean Hess and 2018 righty Will Jennings combined to pitch seven shutout innings, allowing nine hits while striking out five and walking three.
“Our bats started out a little flat at the beginning of the tournament but our pitching has been carrying us very well,” Vargas said. “We had to get adjusted to the heat pretty quickly … and it’s a culture shock for us, environment-wise. But by the third or fourth game our pitchers were good and the past two games they’ve thrown two shutouts.”
Most of the players on the roster have been playing with the Jersey Boyz Scout Team – it is the only team in the organization – for four or five years, although there are exceptions. Ukrainskyj, for instance, just joined the team in the fall.
They come from the Jersey cities of Summit, Westfield, Elizabeth and Mountainside, and New York burgs like Scarsdale and Valley Cottage. They attend public and private schools, as well as college preps like Seton Hall, Don Bosco and St. Peter’s. They’ve all come together from these different places and experiences to form a pretty darn good – and especially smart – baseball team.
“One of the fundamental things we preach with our boys is not making adjustments after the game, but making adjustments within the play,” Vargas said. “If you can make adjustments within the play you can move forward and you can progress your game that way.
“And we’re very excited to be here,” he added. “It’s one of those things where it’s a great opportunity for our boys.”
Vargas is very thrilled – as well he should be – that Al Leiter has become a supporter of Jersey Boyz Select Baseball. Leiter, a native of Toms River, N.J., pitched all or parts of 19 years in the big leagues and won 162 games.
His most productive years came toward the end of his career when he reached double-digit victories for seven straight seasons (1998-2004) pitching with the New York Mets; he was 17-6 with a 2.47 ERA in 1998 and finished sixth in the NL Cy Young Award balloting. He has worked in television broadcasting for FOX, the MLB Network and other outlets since retiring from the game after the 2005 season.
Leiter’s son, Jack, is a 2019 second-baseman and right-hander for the Jersey Boyz Scout Team, one of only two 2019s on the roster. Vargas said that Leiter could have placed his son in just about any other program in the Northeast but chose Jersey Boyz Select Baseball because of its rigid academic standards.
The Jersey Boyz aren’t in the classroom this week but are soaking up a month’s worth of baseball knowledge in the week they’ll have spent at the 16u PG BCS Finals. And while Vargas insists capturing titles and taking home trophies isn’t all that important to this group, winning games and advancing to the playoffs – while beating a couple of teams from the South along the way – can certainly be satisfying.
“We’ve been very blessed,” he said. “Baseball is one of those sports where you can be loved by the gods or you can be hated, and we’ve been loved a little bit more than we’ve been hated. We really appreciate that but we’re going out there and we’re working as hard as we can anyway.
“Us being able to make our mark, essentially that’s what we’re looking to do. We’re looking to shock some teams and we’re looking to let them know that when they play the Jersey Boyz they’re going to be in for a battle.”