FORT MYERS, Fla. – The baseball journey Nick Bitsko has embarked upon – one that he hopes will be equal parts long and rewarding – is, in fact, in its very early stages. Think of it along the lines of a spring-fed stream that eventually harnesses the powers of nature and builds itself into a mighty river.
That analogy might be a stretch but it also might be spot-on. Bitsko – a newly minted freshman at Central Bucks High School East in Doylestown, Pa. – is starting this adventure from an enviable vantage point, sort of like that cascading stream finding its source at the top of the mountain.
A 6-foot-3, 200-pound, 15-year-old primary right-handed pitcher, Bitsko arrived at this holiday weekend’s 2nd annual Perfect Game Select Baseball Festival as the No. 1-ranked prospect in the national high school graduating class of 2021.
He can see for miles and miles from that lofty perch, but he can also see something else when he climbs into the bus that has been transporting him and the other 37 class of 2020 and 2021 prospects back-and-forth between the resort hotel in Bonita Springs they are being housed at and the jetBlue Park Player Development Complex the last two days.
The other nine 2021s ranked in the top 10 of PG’s national prospect rankings are sitting on that bus, too, including No. 2 Blaze Jordan (Southaven, Miss.), No. 3 Carlos Rodriguez (Miami), No. 4 Grant Taylor (Florence, Ala.) and No. 5 Ethan Wood (Lebanon, Ky.).
Bitsko doesn’t get all wrapped-up in the rankings, but that doesn’t mean he can ignore them entirely. They’re a fact of life, and as long as they’re out there he figures he might as well put them to good use.
“You try to use (the rankings) for motivation, just to stay up there if you can,” Bitsko told PG Saturday morning before Team East and Team West took part in a practice session and inter-squad game on a backfield at the jetBlue complex. “You don’t want someone overtaking your spot, or if somebody does overtake your spot then you try to overtake them again.
“It’s a constant battle,” he said. “Your battling with those guys out there but you’re also trying to compete with them; it’s fun.”
Just being surrounded by so many talented and highly ranked prospects – remember that any one of those guys could one day overtake Bitsko for the top spot – is the reason Bitsko found himself on Cloud 9 when he received the invitation to the event. He immediately began thinking about interacting with all these other guys who are also just starting to get very serious about their own baseball journeys.
“You get to pick their brains and see what they’re doing differently so you can figure out what you can incorporate in your game, too,” he said. “They’re obviously trained by different people – different professionals – so I’m sure they have different styles of how they hit, how they pitch, how they field. You just talk to them and see what their mindset is when they go out here and play baseball.”
Bitsko made the trip down to Southwest Florida with his parents, Nick and Sue Bitsko. Although the father and son share the same first and last names, they have different middle names so they are not “Sr.” and “Jr.” (for the purposes of this posting, when the son is referred to, it will read “Bitsko” and when the dad is referred to, it will read “Nick Bitsko”). The parents are as excited about being a part of the PG Select Baseball Festival as their son is.
“This is humbling, this is an honor; we feel blessed,” Sue said Saturday. “Nick is so motivated and just has such passion for the sport and for performing at his best for his team. He’s very humbled and he’s very honored and beyond thrilled to be a part of this. … He truly found his passion in life with baseball.”
Bitsko is obviously an athletic kid, and he uses that athleticism to play basketball at a pretty high level during Pennsylvania’s winter months. He loves playing hoops but he does not play that game as competitively as he does baseball. It’s mostly a way of staying in shape while also resting his pitching arm for months at a time.
When he’s at home in Pennsylvania he trains with a couple of local instructors – Matt Alvarez and Dan Kusters – who have helped him tremendously during the early stages of his career. He knows the baseball culture isn’t as rich and deep back home as it is in many of the warm-weather states simply because of the length of the offseason, but that is not much of a detriment in Bitsko’s mind. In fact, he turns it into an advantage.
“I like having more of a break and pitching-wise it’s good,” he said. “You’re still fresh even at this time of the year because you get the three months off during the (winter) … and that’s one of the benefits of being up north. But these (southern players) obviously play baseball the year around, and it shows.”
Bitsko has already built an impressive travel-ball resume and has been named to five PG all-tournament teams while playing with the Buck County Generals, the Tri-State Arsenal and the Mid-Atlantic Red Sox. Playing into the summer after his local school’s spring season is completed has been a good fit for the tall-right-hander.
“It’s fun; I think it’s a great time,” he said. “You get to meet a lot of new kids along the way, too, and you make new friends and build relationships that hopefully will last a lifetime.”
Despite his young age, Bitsko has already committed to the University of Virginia and head coach Brian O’Connor and his staff.
Virginia extended its offer to Bitsko looking at him as a two-way player, and although he has climbed the PG national prospect rankings as a primary pitcher he isn’t ready to put down the bat quite yet; he plays the outfield and some shortstop when not pitching.
One of the most impressive numbers on Bitsko’s PG Player Profile is “4.0” which is the grade-point average he carried with him into Central Bucks East HS this month. He believes that academics trumps even baseball in the grand scheme of things. He’s already mature enough to realize that if baseball doesn’t work out he can fall back on his strong academic record.
Virginia’s reputation for academic excellence was one of the reasons Bitsko chose to commit to the school. But the baseball side of things – an NCAA Div. I College World Series championship in 2015 stands out – was also appealing.
“The coaching staff was very welcoming. I felt at home when I went there my first time, so it was just kind of like, ‘This is the place,” he said.
Nick Bitsko played college football at the University of Delaware so he knows what the whole college recruiting process can entail, but he and Sue were pretty hands-off when it came to their son’s recruitment. Things happened quickly once Bitsko made a couple of visits to Charlottesville that ultimately sealed the deal.
“Nick is a very good student and very motivated academically, and he just loved the approach that the coaches have,” Sue said. “It was a total gut feeling for all three of us but most importantly for Nick, and we just support him 100 percent.”
Bitsko is also supportive of his mom and dad: “My parents have always let me do whatever I want to do in sports,” he said. “If I wanted to go play soccer they let me play soccer, if I wanted to play baseball they let me play baseball. They’ve always supported me through everything I did, which is really good.”
The 2nd annual PG Select Baseball Festival all-star game is scheduled for a 7 p.m. first-pitch at jetBlue Park – Fenway South, the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox – on Sunday; the game will be televised live on Fox Sports Networks and streamed simultaneously on MLB.com.
It wouldn’t be all that surprising if Bitsko is Team East’s starter in the game but if not, he’ll be in there soon enough. He said when he does get on the mound he’s not going to be feeling any pressure whatsoever – he’s just going to “let it fly” and enjoy the ride.
If the four days he ends up spending here produces nothing more than long lasting friendships and valuable relationships – and maybe a little knowledge gleaned from the minds of the other 37 prospects – then the weekend will be an unqualified success.
That’s the way his dad looks at it, too. Nick Bitsko knows his son lives to have the opportunity to hang out with his age-group peers, the ones who also play the game at a high level. The young Nick lives for it simply because it presents him with the challenges he craves.
“I hope he can take away some long-time camaraderie with the other kids,” Nick Bitsko said. “And I think he’ll take something away from going and seeing the (Golisano) children’s hospital (Friday) – he seemed to enjoy that – and just a great baseball experience with some boys that he’ll keep in touch with through the years.”
His mom was quick to add: “I think it will be very motivating for him too, just playing with the best. That’s why it’s so humbling for him to be considered one of the best and he’s playing with the best, and it’s shear motivation to just keep going at it; that’s what he does.”
The journey has just begun, sort of like that small stream building into a mighty river. There is no guarantee the No. 1 prospect ranking will always be in place but there is a sense of certainty that Bitsko’s determination will never fade.