He's just a kid, yet the flock of grown men are back again, having flown in from across the country simply so they can stare at him.
They jostle for position, some in sweat pants, some in silk ties and $300 dress shoes. They stare and they take notes, and then they stare some more. And with every pitch he throws, in unscripted unison, they raise their arms and track the kid with radar, as though he were a jetliner about to land at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, instead of perhaps the best high school pitcher in the nation.
"It seems like the scouts and the radar guns have always been there," says Mount St. Joseph senior Gavin Floyd. "When they first started showing up at games, I thought it was the biggest thing. These days, I don't really pay much attention."
In fact, if there is one thing that Floyd wouldn't mind receiving a little less of these days, it's attention. When he takes the mound today against visiting Calvert Hall in the first round of the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference playoffs in perhaps the biggest game of his career, he'll be doing it beneath the proverbial microscope. Every eye - whether it belongs to the random grandmother or to any one of the 50 or so major-league scouts expected to attend - will be focused on him and his 95-mph fastball.
"I don't know how he does it sometimes," says Joe Sargent, Gavin's close friend and teammate. "He just goes out there and none of it bothers him. When he's locked in, all he thinks about is baseball."
It's no secret that after a stellar varsity career at Mount St. Joe, Gavin is projected to be one of the top five picks in the Major League Baseball draft on June 5. And though the No. 5-ranked Gaels' season is just heating up, the battle for Floyd has been raging for nearly a year now.
Just about every week since late July, the Floyd household in Severna Park has received a barrage of phone calls, letters and business cards from the virtually hundreds of agents and scouts who are clamoring to sign Gavin - should he choose to skip college next fall and sign a baseball contract. Though scouts are reluctant to elaborate on his talents, the consensus is that Floyd is a can't-miss prospect, expected to be offered a signing bonus of about $3 million, according to Baseball America.
Most of the commotion doesn't reach him, thanks to his parents, Rodney and Elaine, who have somehow kept the hungry masses at arm's length thus far.
