Arizona Wildcats: Scott Kingery Returns to Little League World Series With Phillies

Former Arizona Wildcats’ shortstop Scott Kingery made his return to Williamsport, PA with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Scott Kingery has lived out the dream of most young baseball players growing up in Phoenix, Arizona. As a 12-year-old shortstop, Kingery and his fellow Ahwatukee, AZ teammates made it all the way to the 2006 Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA, then followed it with a stellar career at the University of Arizona before signing a monster MLB contract with the Philadelphia Phillies. To put it simply, he’s checked off most boxes on a prospective baseball player’s checklist.

Now, 12 years after appearing in the Little League World Series as a 4-foot-9, 79-pound infielder, the current Phillies’ rookie is back in Williamsport. The Phillies and New York Mets met in the second annual MLB Little League Classic at Bowman Field on Sunday, August 19th.

The event featured the current MLB players wearing nicknames on the back of their Little League-style jerseys. In addition, all the players from the 2018 Little League World Series were in attendance at the Phillies-Mets game.

Bowman Field has hosted baseball games for almost 100 years and is the current home of the Williamsport Crosscutters — one of Philadelphia’s Single-A affiliates.

Kingery was born and raised in Phoenix, AZ, playing high school ball at Mountain Pointe. In college, he made the Wildcats’ roster as a preferred walk-on, eventually excelling in Tucson. As a junior in 2015, Kingery was named Pac-12 Player of the Year.

In the 2015 MLB Amateur Draft, the Phillies took Kingery in the second round. By March of this year, he had made enough of an impression that the franchise gave him a six-year, $24 million deal. Per the Ahwatukee Foothill News, the deal was the largest guarenteed contract of any player yet to appear in an MLB game.

With that said, it didn’t take long for Kingery to make his MLB debut. He made the Opening Day roster out of camp and has been their regular shortstop all year. Although he’s only hitting .226 this year, he is still a rookie and has shown flashes of greatness. In June alone, he hit .295 with a .354 OBP.

As for the MLB Little League Classic, the Phoenix-born ballplayer started at shortstop and hit No. 7 for the Phillies. In his second at-bat, Kingery recorded the first extra-base hit of the game, knocking a double to left field in the bottom of the fifth inning.

It should be noted that two other players, Michael Conforto (Mets) and Todd Frazier (Mets), also appeared in the Little League World Series when they were youngsters.