By Nathan Rode
National Supervisor

LONG BEACH, CA - The 2014 Area Code Games kicked off Monday with batting practice for four of the eight teams and three games. Hosted at Blair Field, home runs are typically hard to come by. It’s 348 feet down each line with a high wall all the way around. Couple that with the marine layer, a morning fog or haze that makes the air more dense, and high school prospects understandably struggle to go yard.

Don’t tell OF Nick Plummer (Brother Rice HS, MI), though. Facing RHP Nolan Kingham (Sierra Vista HS, NV), Plummer took the first pitch of the game before squaring up an 89 mph fastball for a towering home run to right field. Just one home run was hit in the 2013 Area Code Games and that number was matched on the event’s first in-game swing.

Facing Kingham for a second time, he fouled off several pitches, even squaring one up down the first base line that could’ve easily been ruled fair for a likely double, before drawing his first walk. He walked again in his third at-bat.

Here are some more highlights from the first day of action in Long Beach: