Redemption for NOLA in Commissioner's Cup
CLEVELAND -- A year ago, Kenya Huggins and his New Orleans MLB Youth Academy team competed in the All-Star Commissioner’s Cup over All-Star Weekend in Washington D.C. It was Huggins who was on the mound in the loss that knocked his team from the tournament. So when they were invited back in 2019, he had that experience firmly in his head.
On Monday, Huggins was given the chance to take the mound in the Commissioner’s Cup championship and erase that memory. He did so with a flourish, tossing a two-hit, 12-strikeout complete-game masterpiece to lead New Orleans to a 4-1 win over Cincinnati at Case Western University’s Nobby’s Ballpark.
“Last game, when I pitched, we lost and that stopped us from going to the championship,” Huggins said. “It was a lot of fun. We came last year and really didn’t do well. This year we had a better team and we came out strong.”
Huggins kept Cincinnati hitless until the sixth inning, and it looked like the 1-0 lead his offense gave him on a Dillon Cousin RBI single in the first was going to hold up. Huggins lost the strike zone a bit in that sixth inning, with a one-out walk to Gavin Bangert coming back to haunt him. Bangert moved to third on a Bryn Langley single to right, the first hit of the game, and scored on a wild pitch.
Until the top of the seventh, Cincinnati starter Quinton Hall had nearly matched Huggins, allowing just that first-inning run. The left-hander only gave up four hits, but he ran into trouble in the top of the seventh. Cousin led things off with a walk and he was sacrificed to second. Jardy Montgomery’s single scored him to give New Orleans a 2-1 lead, and a couple of errors allowed them to tack on two insurance runs. Then Huggins did the rest, and though he was running out of gas, he wanted to be sure to be on the mound to close things out.
“It was very important because I was getting kind of tired and I was thinking my team can play defense, so throw strikes,” Huggins said.
“Fabulous job,” New Orleans coach Paul Poche said. “He’s our big guy. He carries a lot of weight on his shoulders, but he came out today, he threw strikes. He bared down and got it done.”
The trip to Cleveland was about more than just being named champion. The tournament featured 10 teams of youth baseball players (ages 17 and under) from MLB Youth Academies from around the country and Puerto Rico. The teams that participated in the All-Star Commissioner’s Cup:
• Cleveland Indians Youth Baseball, Cleveland
• MLB Youth Academy, Compton, Calif.
• New Orleans MLB Youth Academy, New Orleans, La.
• Houston Astros MLB Youth Academy, Houston
• P&G MLB Cincinnati Reds Youth Academy, Cincinnati
• Philadelphia Phillies MLB Urban Youth Academy, Philadelphia
• Texas Rangers MLB Youth Academy, Dallas, Texas
• Kansas City Royals MLB Urban Youth Academy, Kansas City
• DREAM, Harlem, N.Y.
• Elite Development Training Program, Gurabo, Puerto Rico
Cincinnati had swept through four games, beating Compton and DREAM on Friday, Houston on Saturday and topping Kansas City on a walk-off on Sunday to reach the title game. New Orleans beat Texas and Cleveland on Friday, then topped Puerto Rico on Saturday. The team lost to Philadelphia but was still the top seed in its pool to advance. Just being able to come together with other youth programs was a win enough for Poche.
“Anything you do with Major League Baseball, for a kid, or actually for an adult, myself -- I’m ecstatic about it,” Poche said. “To come here and compete with these guys, you get to play against some of the best talent around all of the academies Major League baseball is putting out. It’s a really beautiful thing.”
New Orleans will get home and then leave two days later for a regional RBI tournament in Austin, Texas. But before they do that, they and the other participants in the Commissioner’s Cup will get to spend time with Commissioner Rob Manfred.
“It feels great,” Huggins said. “I’m going to shake his hand and get a picture with him before I leave.”