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The ball was gone almost before the crowd had a chance to react. Pressed up against the chain-link fence, toddlers and professional scouts alike craned their necks and widened their eyes.

This is what happens when Griffin Burkholder connects with a fastball.

Moments after trampolining off the silver barrel of Burkholder’s bat, the ball arcs over the scoreboard in left field and comes to rest under a group of trees well beyond the fence. Mark Wrighte, the coach at Freedom (South Riding), will later claim it is the longest home run he has ever seen at the Eagles’ home field.

Some in attendance crack wry smiles. Some clap. Others are a bit less shy.

“That ball was f---ing demolished!” one National League scout remarks. Next inning, he’s on the phone with his club, asking for another representative to come to Loudoun County to verify the potential he sees.

The top high school prospect in Virginia, Burkholder has rocketed up Major League Baseball draft boards. After three years as the starting center fielder at Freedom (9-5), he recently broke into <a href="https://www.mlb.com/prospects/draft/" target=_blank>MLB Pipeline’s list</a> of the top 100 draft prospects, ranked the No. 38 high-schooler in his class. In his senior season, he is hitting .467 with a .636 on-base percentage.

In that mid-April game against Osbourn Park, Burkholder’s four plate appearances included a single, a triple and a home run — with an intentional walk — in a 14-4 win. For the dozen or so scouts in attendance, one swing made the game worth the trip.

Burkholder’s name is not new to scouts. He committed to West Virginia in 2020 — before he played a high school game — and has crisscrossed the country with his travel team. But it was last August, at the four-day East Coast Pro showcase in Hoover, Ala., where his stock soared.

“I didn’t know a ton of people [there], but a lot of people knew each other from past events,” Burkholder said. “I went in with an opportunity to prove myself, and I was lucky enough to do really well in that tournament. That really got my name out there.”

Agents and scouts started calling. Some came by for in-home visits.

“That was just a different moment of surreality,” said Dave Burkholder, Griffin’s father. “We were like: ‘This is really weird. Is this really happening?’ ”

High school teams frequently pitch around Burkholder, so scouts often get their best looks at his swing during batting practice. Wrighte communicates the team’s pregame schedule with scouts in advance.

One day in March, at a spring break tournament in Richmond, the Eagles only hit in the cage before one of their two games. The scouts weren’t satisfied. Burkholder noticed an L screen being rolled onto the field, prompting him to prepare for an unusual round of single-player batting practice wedged between games. He put on a show.

“He must have hit five or six balls that were just absolutely annihilated,” Wrighte said.

At 6-foot-2 and nearly 200 pounds, Burkholder has a game that goes well beyond the batter’s box. In September, Burkholder was clocked running 60 yards in just 6.29 seconds. His speed is key to his defense and allows him to pressure the opponent on the base paths.

“The potential for that speed and power, the impact and acceleration that he has — that’s what’s exciting about him,” said Shooter Hunt, vice president of scouting for Prep Baseball. “I’ve been on the East Coast the last couple of weeks, and his name has come up a lot from guys that have been around that area. ... You can see the look in their eyes that this is a kid they really like.”

As outside interest mounts, the senior refuses to let the whirlwind around him curtail his focus. When he comes to bat, he doesn’t look to the bleachers for anybody — not even his family.

“I’m locked in on what’s in front of me, the opportunity that I have, whether it’s a high school game or a national showcase,” Burkholder said. “It’s almost like putting noise-canceling headphones on. You can’t hear anything else. You just have tunnel vision for that one moment.”

As a senior with an abbreviated schedule, Burkholder gets out of school early. He has about two hours to himself before practice, when he often will go home to do mobility exercises and, if there’s time, head to the gym for a quick workout.

“Baseball’s pretty much my life,” Burkholder says.

Burkholder’s drive is organic; his father calls him a “self-driven perfectionist.” His parents attribute that fire to growing up with a pair of older brothers. Whether it was knee hockey in the basement or basketball in the driveway, Burkholder was not lacking for competition.

Most days, he reaches the baseball field at Freedom about 45 minutes before most of his teammates. Breathing exercises, meditation and prayer settle his mind; dynamic movement exercises further prepare his body.

After the day’s assigned work is done, Burkholder often heads to the cages to further tune his swing. Sometimes, his pre-practice or pregame hitting regimen doesn’t scratch his itch for improvement. On a few occasions, he has stayed late enough to cut the stadium lights off himself.

“It’s where I’m the happiest,” Burkholder said. “I love being out here, playing the game.”

He now works at Rip City, a local indoor baseball facility that offers free access to its cages in return. But sometimes he has to get creative to get his baseball fix. One offseason evening, Wrighte stumbled upon Burkholder’s girlfriend feeding the pitching machine as he took swings before their dinner date.

When Burkholder was 7, he declared his dream to play in the big leagues. His parents humored him, aware that only a minuscule percentage of countless hopefuls realize such ambitions. Now, that reality is not so far-fetched.

“That’s the end goal, stepping onto a big league field and leaving an impact and legacy on a city,” Burkholder said. “I visualize that a lot. That’s my dream. That’s what I want to do.”

He’ll have a tough decision to make soon. His phone surely will ring during the MLB draft in July. The only question is where he will be chosen. MLB designates “slot values” to each draft position, an approximate figure for what each player is paid. The first 92 picks have a slot value of at least $800,000.

If the situation is right, Burkholder is prepared to go pro. But he also sees the value of going to college, and scouts have assured him they’ll be watching at West Virginia until he reenters the draft.

In the meantime, attention grows by the week. Major league teams have started sending multiple representatives to games, with some teams’ front-office personnel checking in themselves. A process that was once dreamlike and strange is starting to get very real.

“I try not to let it get to my head too much that it could be a possibility,” Burkholder said. “I try not to do too much and just be myself out here, and I’ve been able to have a lot of fun through it. It’s been an amazing experience, and I can’t wait to see where it might lead.”

Emmett Siegel

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Freedom baseball’s Griffin Burkholder is a high school star with MLB potential

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