By: Austin Alexander – August 12-13, 2023
Southwest wins walking away; Sub-7.0’s record tied, Velo galore steals show again
This past weekend, once more our 16th Annual Palmetto Games was an amazing celebration of high school baseball in South Carolina! 120+ college coaches and professional scouts, along with our state’s top talent found their way to our birthplace of this event – the University of South Carolina. With a new and immaculate playing surface prepared for us and first-class hospitality, the talent on the field matched all the preparation behind the scenes!
It has become a running theme with coaches and scouts that Mother Nature is not a Palmetto Games fan, as we have become accustomed to every sort of weather (except snow) and delay imaginable over the years – even a 3-inning long fire alarm sounding off. Not this year folks! Clear skies minus a late threat of the elements on Day 1, combined with heat indexes over 100 all weekend at least allowed the parade of arms to follow more 60 speed than we ever had in this event!
As always, the format had a championship flavor pitting players against each other that hail from their geographic region, unless we had to even out positional needs. In the first five years this was a three-day affair, in 2013 we made the move to a two-day approach with the schedule calling for batting practice on the field, along with pre-game infield/outfield, and 60’s on Saturday, then followed by games. The Sunday slate featured each club playing one 9 inning game.
Each team was able to participate in their post-game with awards being handed out for: Golden Arm, Silver Slugger, Gold Glove and Charlie Hustle Awards.
For the past three years our champion was decided on the final swing of a Sunday contest. Team Southwest left nothing to chance as they were the only undefeated team in 2023. They were piloted by former Oceanside Collegiate skipper and new head coach Ritchie McCullough and Britt Reames, respectively, whose club went 2-0 scoring 16 runs while surrendering only 5. It was their 3rd Palmetto Games championship and first since 2019. Congratulations to Team Southwest!
Taking our top awards during the weekend were the following: Blythewood 2025 Alex Myers (left, Most Outstanding Player) whose bat and defensive prowess led him to this honor… North Myrtle Beach 2025 RHP Luke Roupe (right) dealt 2 IP, allowing zero hits or walks while punching out 3; for his efforts he was awarded the Most Outstanding Pitcher Award…In honor of our deceased friend and staff member Jeff Young, the 7th annual “JY” Heavy Hitter Award was issued to a guy who did a little bit of everything, Blue Ridge 2024 Cade Norton (left, 3-for-4, R). Congratulations to each winner with a stage loaded full of legit guys who are really good at this baseball thing!
Swift Stuff: Believed to be Palmetto Games records, 36 players crossed the finish line with sub-7.0/60 times (tying last years mark) led by Spartanburg 2024 Elijah Grant’s 6.32 (left)…Also, 30 arms touched 88 MPH or better, with 16 eclipsing 90+, capped by P27 Academy 2025 RHP Daniel Parker (right) whose bumping of 95 MPH was a joy to view! The batting practice had been fairly ‘ho-hum’ in the dinger department other than Summerville’s ‘The PJ Morlando (2024) Show‘ fresh off of winning the National HR Derby at MLB’s All-Star Game in Seattle! Plenty of barrels were found by plenty of others as bullets were flying all over Founders Park.
The TO Award: Within a month following 2015 Palmetto Games, DP MVP Tony Osterman was diagnosed with cancer. After an insane round of chemo treatments, radiation and numerous surgeries, guess who was back in the same role they have filled for 15 years…a cancer-free winner of life! In honor of our Warrior, we began an award that rewards one participant that shares TO’s zest for living and overall excellence as a person, this year’s recipient was Carolina Forest senior Nolan Alexander (pictured) whose endured having a mother who beat cancer at the same time as Osterman did. Alexander has led as example on/off the field and in the classroom which is what we look for in a TO Award Winner.
Palmetto Games Champions (Last Title): Mideast-5 (2022), Northeast-3 (2017), Southwest-3 (2019), Northwest-2 (2021), Midwest-2 (2012), Southeast-0
Stay tuned as Diamond Prospects continues to spit out far more info this week!
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NEW! Prospect Info: Pitchers / NEW! Prospect Info: Position Players / NEW! Player Superlatives / NEW! DP Awards / NEW! 60-MPH-POP+ / NEW! Team Pictures / @diamondprospect / Standings
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Gamecock Hospitality 14.0: After 12 years as the Palmetto Games’ home, USC had to pull the plug for Covid reasons about six weeks before the 2020 event. Yours truly was thrown into a tailspin…but Al Harris with the City of Sumter came to the rescue! For two years Riley Park was an amazing host before we returned to where it all began. Years ago, this event was the brainchild of then-skipper, now AD Ray Tanner, so DP obliged and so did everyone we dealt with this year upon our return to Founders Park. A special thanks to Coach Tanner, Mark Kingston, Mike Current and their amazing staff for making this another successful weekend!
Twitter, etc: Shout out, Gary Asbill and John Whittle-wow again, thanks for taking the lead with pics and posting at a torrid pace all weekend. Outstanding job even when the bullets were being fired and the heat was challenging, both performed at a Five Tool level!
AA’s Pitch: The 2023 Palmetto Games saw a wealth of talent with another handsome number of scouts in attendance, thus making this weekend another successful event! We are often complemented but could never have pulled off the feat without a ton of help from every edge of our state and in between. Thank you to the prep coaches that assist us daily, your help is huge. I also want to publicly complement our DP team. Loyalty, dedication, pursuit of perfection…I am insulated with a group of winners which is the biggest reason this Diamond Prospects train continues to roll on…
The DP staff would like to send out an additional giant fist-bump to the following: LDH Sports, Anchor Bat Company, Rawlings, I.T.S. Sports, Dingers Only, Sleep Inn, Bill Petty, Amanda Asbill and The Perry Girls…in no particular order.