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Fedko wins national title in Pitch, Hit & Run
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Kyler Fedko, 12, of Gibsonia, Pa., a member of the Struthers-based Ohio Glaciers 12U team, was one of three finalists in the 11-12 age group to advance to the national Hit, Pitch & Run competition July 9 in Kansas City. There, Kyler hit, pitched and ran his way to the national title and a seat at the 2012 MLB All-Star Game on July 10.
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Serena Sammarone, 12, of Canfield, was the local and regional (Cleveland) winner of the Hit, Pitch & Run competition in the 11-12 age group in softball, but was not among the three finalists to go to the national competition.
By john bassetti
Since the Fedkos spend summers traveling around the country for their early teen and pre-teen sons and their baseball, going to Kansas City, Mo., for the Major League All-Star Game shouldn’t have been anything special.
Until 12-year-old Kyler came to bat.
And to pitch.
And to run.
He did it as part of the Pitch, Hit & Run competition, which was held a day before the National League’s 8-0 win at Kauffman Stadium on July 10.
In the end, Kyler, a member of the Ohio Glaciers 12U team, was a national champ for winning his 11-12 age group.
“It was awesome,” said his father, John, who accompanied Kyler to Kansas City. “The fact that he got to hang out in the dugouts with the All-Stars is a tremendous experience for him.”
The PHR competition was prior to Monday’s afternoon workout by both AL and NL teams and the subsequent home run derby, during which the kids shagged balls.
Was John Fedko envious of his son?
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I felt great for Kyler, who had a great experience spending a day with some of best baseball players in the world, including some future hall of famers.”
PHR’s preliminary round was at Pemberton Park, followed by a regional in Strongsville. He also won at Progressive Field prior to a Cleveland Indians interleague game with Pittsburgh on June 16.
“It was really pressure-packed,” John Fedko said of the tough competition at Progressive Field where the also-rans went home empty.
Although he finished first in Cleveland, his results were compared against age-group winners from the other 29 major league stadiums.
“They took the top three scores in the country to be invited to Kansas City,” John Fedko said of the exclusivity of the group. When MLB TV announced the three national qualifiers, Kyler was among those.
“Each stadium’s winners not only had to win, but they had to have such a high score,” John said. “A lot of good kids didn’t make it,” he said of the remaining 27 at the stadium level.
In Kansas City, Fedko was up against a finalist from Nebraska who qualified through the Colorado Rockies and a State College, Pa., youth who reigned at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park.
The first event was throwing a ball into a small hole in a target at home plate. Of Kyler’s six pitches, five were in the hole for strikes.
“That’s where you rack points up,” his dad said.
The two-pronged objective of hitting was to place the ball far and straight. Fedko’s three swings landed around 250 feet away near a line down the middle of the field.
Contestants ran from second base to home, but not at the major league 90-foot distance.
Following identical times of 8.26 seconds by the first two kids, Fedko turned in 8.24.
“It’s always about pitching, so when Kyler hit 5 of 6 strikes after the kid in front of him threw 4 of 6, he was confident he had a real shot at it,” John Fedko said of his son’s early chances.
“I never had a kid go this far in all my years I’ve done it,” Park & Recreation director Bob Burke said. “I consider this a smaller program [number of parks in the Youngstown market], so I’m excited to have had two [Fedko and Serena Sammarone] go to Cleveland.”
Throughout the summer, John and Tina Fedko were busy transporting Kyler and his brother, Christian, to travel team games.
After Progressive Field, the Fedkos drove through the night to Cooperstown, N.Y., to play in a tournament.
“We’re used to traveling all over,” John Fedko said of tournaments in Mississippi, Colorado and Florida.
In Steamboat Springs, Colo., Kyler pitched three games as the Ohio Glaciers won the Triple Crown 13-year-old World Series.
“He was playing a year up,” his father said of Kyler, who turns 13 in September.
Kyler also played for the Central Florida Gators (no Glacier connection) in Southaven, Miss., where the team won the NABF Freshman Division World Series.
Thirteen-year-old Christian Fedko also played for the 13U Ohio Glaciers in Steamboat Springs, where he won the 13U Triple Crown World Series home run derby,
Twelve-year-old Serena Sammarone of Canfield, the daughter of Chris and Krista Sammarone, won the 11-12 age group in softball, locally and again in Cleveland, yet she didn’t advance to the all-star game.
“She was first in northern Ohio among 12-year-old girls, but didn’t make the top three [nationally] to advance,” her father, Chris Sammarone, said of his daughter falling short when Serena’s times and results were compared with 29 other winners in her age group from ballparks throughout the country.
The pitching segment comprised of six pitches toward a target, while the hitting from a tee was measured by distance and direction (straight). The running event was from second base to home plate.
“That was her strength because she’s pretty fast,” Chris said of Serena’s best of the categories.
Serena, who will be in the sixth grade at Canfield Middle School, plays in the Canfield Baseball Club League.
What prompted her to sign up?
“I’m involved with the co-sponsor [Ohio Glaciers], so she heard about it that way,” Sammarone said of his daughter’s first PHR involvement. “She was very excited, but, obviously, she would have loved to have gone on to the all-star game. But there’s always next year.”
Chris Sammarone played center at YSU from 1991-94, including those as the starter on the 1992 national football runnerup, and back-to-back national championship teams in 1993 and 1994, the latter as captain and first-team All-America.