The power of prep school baseball

Lawrence Academy coach Chris Margraf sat in a Braintree, Mass., sports bar in late October and reflected on the way his program has changed since his arrival in 1997.

Mid-sentence, he grabbed a phone out of his pocket, pointed to the screen and said, "I’ve got to take this; it’s Stanford."

Stanford assistant coach Tom Eager was on the other end of the line, delivering news to Margraf that the top pitching prospect at Lawrence Academy, Max Meier (Belmont, Mass.), had just been admitted to the California baseball powerhouse.