Changing Times USA Baseball moved Chris Betts in right direction By Mike Persinger / June 16, 2014

The teen years are a period of change for everyone, but perhaps few have been as changed by experiences with USA Baseball as Chris Betts.

The 6-1, 215-pounder from Long Beach, Calif., Woodrow Wilson High is among 108 of the top 18U players in the country invited to the Tournament of Stars, the first step in the selection process for the 18U National Team that will compete in the COPABE 18U Pan American Championship, to be held in early fall in the Mexican cities of Lagos de Moreno and Aguascalientes.

But reaching that point didn't come without change.

First, there was his body. In the summer of 2010, Betts was invited to the 13U NTIS, a USA Baseball identification event for the following year's national teams. He was, by his own admission, not in the best shape.

"Up until the point I was 13, I was just a happy-go-lucky, big kid who would hit home runs, then eat doughnuts after the game," Betts said. "I really didn't care much."

That changed on the plane ride home.

"Getting myself together as a baseball player and getting my mind and body in shape, I credit that 100 percent to (summer-league coaches) Jon Paino and Matt Parker," Betts said. "They sat me down on that flight home and they said, 'if you want to succeed in this game you're going to have to lose some weight, you're going to have to take your body seriously.' I took that to heart and I have done that ever since.

"Honestly, without that conversation maybe I would have done it eventually, but without those two on that plane ride, it wouldn't have happened as soon as it did, so I have to give them a lot of credit."

He dedicated himself to better nutrition and more intense training, and a year later was invited to the USA Baseball 14U National Team Trials as a pitcher.

He ended up making the team as a catcher.

That brought about another change, this one mental.

The 14U tournament was in San Felipe, Venezuela, and the USA team won the gold medal, overcoming a boisterous crowd and a championship game against the host country.

"The crowds were absolutely nuts," Betts said. "They were hostile, they were loud, they had bands in the stands, they had drums, they had everything going. They did not want us to win.

"It was cool playing in front of those people though. They don't want you to be there and they don't want you to beat them. When you do succeed, it's really nice."

It was what Betts saw away from the field and at the hotel that affected him the most, though.

Armed guards that accompanied the USA team everywhere. Poverty. Desperation.

"They don't have anything compared to us," he said. "The (other teams) all share two or three bats, and we each have two to ourselves. We have a lot of stuff that they have never even seen before.

"There were kids trying to trade their jersey with their country name on it for one of our bats. They were in love with our new stuff and showing us how old and beat up their stuff was, telling us about their houses and everything.

"It really opens your eyes to what's really important in the world."

Paino saw the change in Betts.

"He came back a different kid," Paino said. "He came back with some perspective on the world and on what he has and what other kids' situations are like.

"Every kid that we've had go through the USA Baseball program always comes back a different kid, a little bit more mature, when it comes to their game and when it comes to life. Chris definitely went through that."

What Betts has become, on the field, is a left-handed hitting catcher with power.

"It's a unique situation that you get a solid catch-and-throw defensive catcher with the ability to hit for average and power," Paino said. "He's a special kid."

Hitting left-handed and throwing right is part of what makes him special, and it didn't come naturally. His father, Harold, made him into a right-hander.

"I don't remember it but I have all the stories in the world about it," Betts said. "I was picking up Cherios with my left hand. My dad is not a very big man at all, he's probably about 5-10 and built well, but he didn't want his son to be a 5-10, left-handed pitcher. He figured the best shot I had was to be a right-handed thrower and go from there."

Paino knows the stories, too.

"I think Harold saw the limits -- you've got first base, pitcher and outfield," Paino said. "Looking at Chris, he doesn't necessarily have the body type to be a center fielder, so he fit in, obviously, behind the plate, and he's a rare, rare, rare find."

His in-game pop time is in the 1.9s, but Paino said the ball "explodes out of his hand." He has been clocked at 93 mph from the mound.

At least some of that is from his reshaped body.

Harvard-Westlake (Calif.) High coach Matt Lacour, who worked with Betts on USA Baseball's 15U National Team two summers ago, has watched the transformation.

"I've had a chance to get glimpses of him since we live relatively close to one another," Lacour said. "I was with another coach the other day and we were looking at him on video, and one of my coaches said when you get up close to him, he is a man-child. He's obviously been grinding it out in the weight room.

"His work ethic was never in question, it was more eating and stuff like that. He's obviously cleaned that up and matured into a physical specimen on the baseball field."

Betts has spent three summers with the USA Baseball program, 14U, 15U, and with the 17U National Team Development Program, partly because of something he never had to change -- his leadership in the dugout.

His 14U team went 8-0 and won gold, and he led the team with a .600 batting average.

His 15U team went 4-0 in a series in the Dominican Republic, and he tied for the team lead with a .500 average.

"You can call him a clubhouse kind of guy, he's got that infectious personality in the dugout," Paino said. "Wherever he goes, he keeps things light and he keeps things loose, and I think that's why they've had so much success behind him.

"Talent aside, and performance aside, he's the kind of kid you want in your dugout."

Now, the University of Tennessee commitment heads to Cary for the Tournament of Stars and a chance to make another USA Baseball team and compete for another gold medal.

"It never gets old and every year is different," Harold Betts said. "You have new sets of challenges and new people you have to be in front of. He's not going to take it for granted, that's for sure."

And with Betts' background with USA Baseball, he has some advice for the other players at the Tournament of Stars.

"Enjoy it,"" he said. "Even if you don't make it out of one of the tryouts or out of the TOS or whatever, it is still an experience of a lifetime. Enjoy it. That's what I've done these past four summers with them, and it has been some life-changing experiences and definitely life-long memories."

And that's something no one can change.