Former Northern Little League player taken high in MLB draft

Pat Jackson Bass was one happy grandmother Tuesday.

The Columbus woman was celebrating the selection of her grandson in the second round of the Major League Baseball Draft. Caden Lemons, a right-handed pitcher from Vestavia Hills High School near Birmingham, was taken with the 46th overall pick by the Milwaukee Brewers.

Lemons started his baseball career in Columbus, playing at Northern Little League before the family moved to Vestavia Hills when he was 11.

“I have talked to him a couple of times today, and he’s happy,” Bass said.

She said they have been laughing about a story that happened when he was a 7- or 8-year-old player at Northern.

“One of the parents said, ‘We’re going to see him playing for the Braves one day after he caught everything that was hit,” she said. “I was taking him home after that game and he asked me, ‘Ga Ga, do you think I am going to play for Braves? I told him sure. He said when he did he was going to buy me a big Cadillac. We still laugh about that.”

Longtime Northern Little League Coach Randy Morris remembers Lemons as a youngster in ‘A’ ball.

“I remember I wanted to draft him, but by the time I got a pick he was already gone,” said Morris, who has taken two teams to the Little League World Series and won it in 2006. “I know he played ‘A’ ball one year with us as a 10 year old, then they moved. And a 10-year-old in ‘A’ ball is only going to be so good.”

Morris believes that Lemons, who had signed with Ole Miss, might be the highest draft choice to come out of Northern Little League, one of the nation’s top programs.

“It all starts here,” Morris said of Little League. “I guarantee you we will claim him.”

The Brewers see a lot of potential with the 6-foot-6 Lemons and a wicked fastball that has been clocked in the upper 90s, Brewers scouting director Tod Johnson told MLB.com.

“Super exciting,” Johnson said. “He's lean, lanky, really quick arm, really good fastball, developing secondary. We saw a lot of his starts. … This guy has a ton of upside.”

Lemons is the son of Missy and Donnie Lemons, both Columbus natives.

“I know the whole family,” Morris said. “They are a great family and this couldn’t happen to nicer people.”

This story was originally published June 13, 2017 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Former Northern Little League player taken high in MLB draft."