A late March baseball game at Griffin High School, about 40 miles south of Atlanta, attracted a gaggle of scouts. Pike County's Tristin English, a righthanded pitcher bound for Georgia Tech in the fall, was on the mound against Griffin's star, the smooth-swinging Cornelius Randolph.
Griffin coach Alex Wyche batted Randolph leadoff, so English, whose fastball reaches the mid-90s, couldn't pitch around him. In each of his first two at-bats, the lefthanded-hitting Randolph scorched heaters to left-center field, the second resulting in a double that plated a run with two outs.
For at least one of the 30 or so talent evaluators behind home plate, that night was a clincher.