MLB rookies Brett Graves, Nate Orf give strong St. Louis prep program its first big-leaguers

Ryan Fagan

MLB rookies Brett Graves, Nate Orf give strong St. Louis prep program its first big-leaguers image

For 23 seasons as the head baseball coach at Francis Howell High in suburban St. Louis, Tony Perkins has built his program into a dynasty, and along the way he’s helped his players collect just about every trophy and honor possible. 

His Vikings have won four state championships — in 2003, 2011, 2013 and 2016 — and have claimed 17 conference titles, 11 district titles, 10 sectional championships and eight total trips to the MSHSAA final four. He’s had 30 players named first-team All-State and 12 picked as All-Americans. Nearly 150 of his former players have gone on to play college baseball and eight of his players have been drafted. 

You get the picture. One thing was lacking from that resume, though. 

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In 23 years under Perkins — or in the program’s history, dating back to 1954 — no Vikings alum had ever made the big leagues. Then, in a span of two weeks and one day, two Howell grads suited up in MLB uniforms for the first time. On June 17, right-handed pitcher Brett Graves — Howell class of 2011 — made his debut for the Miami Marlins, and on July 2, Milwaukee Brewers rookie Nate Orf — class of 2008 — made his big-league debut. 

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Nate Orf, left, and Brett Graves (Getty Images)

“We’ve had a lot of success, but had never had a guy get in there. That was always a goal of mine, personal goal anyway,” Perkins said. “Really excited when it happened to Brett, and then Nate follows and we get two in the same year? It’s an ecstatic feeling, just so good.”

Perkins and his Vikings have competed against plenty of St. Louis-area prep stars with MLB futures. The Vikings, for example, beat future three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer when the right-hander was a Mizzou-bound senior at Parkway Central. 

White Sox legend Mark Buehrle was in district rival Francis Howell North’s rotation for a couple of years. Ryan Howard and David Freese played for Lafayette, just on the other side of the Missouri River. In addition to Buehrle, Howell’s own Gateway Athletic Conference produced Ross Detwiler and Tim Melville (Holt), Tommy Layne and Steve Colyer (Fort Zumwalt South), Cody Asche (Fort Zumwalt West) and Dennis Tankersley (St. Charles).

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The two Howell grads didn’t have to wait long to offer in-person welcome-to-the-bigs congratulations to each other. Orf’s Brewers traveled to Miami for a three-game set July 9-11. Things didn’t work out for Graves, a 6-1 reliever, to pitch against Orf, a 5-9 infielder, but that didn’t dampen the reunion. 

“To get to play against Brett in one of those first games, after getting to know him back when he was in middle school as a gangly, lanky shortstop, little red-head dude into seeing who he is now, the big-league Brett Graves, it’s just an awesome experience,” Orf told SN. “Our relationship goes deeper than baseball. We just kind of checked in, making sure everything was all right. Just because you’re in the big leagues doesn’t mean everything’s perfect, y’know? It’s nice to have somebody like that in your corner. No one knows you better than the guy who grew up with the same high school coaching staff, in the same area.” 

Nate Orf was the third Orf brother to play for Perkins and the Vikings. Jaron played in 2001 and 2002 and Brendan played in 2005 and 2006. Nate, then a sophomore, got the call to play in a couple of games with Brendan in 2006, but those opportunities didn’t go so well. 

“When they started letting me dress with the varsity team, they let me pinch-run like five times, and I think I got picked off or back-picked every time,” Nate said. “Safe to say, I lost my spot there. After a couple, I ran out there and they’d be like, ‘Just don’t get picked off, OK?’ And I’d be so excited I’d take too big of a secondary lead, and sure enough the catcher would back-pick me. Just wasn’t my time yet.”

The 2007 season was his time. Orf was the starting catcher for the Vikings; he hit .426 with a .621 on-base percentage (not a typo), 28 runs scored and 19 stolen bases, and he was hit by a pitch 19 times — still a school record. His senior season, Orf hit .495 — tied for second in school history — with 41 runs, 21 RBIs and 18 stolen bases. The Vikings made it all the way to the state title game before settling for a second-place finish and a 24-4 record.

“Nate, what an athlete. He wasn’t a big guy — he’s still not a big guy — but he’s strong as an ox,” Perkins said. “Just his feet, his footwork. He’s a guy who would throw behind runners. He was just money. Some of the stuff he did … wow.

“When we beat Parkway South in the quarterfinal game, we had Preston Aldridge in center field and he hosed a guy out at home. Nate makes the tag and whips the ball down to second and gets the guy out, and we’re out of the inning. We end up winning that game to get to the Final Four. It’s still one of the best defensive plays I’ve seen.”

Orf’s road to the big leagues was long and winding. He started at Illinois-Chicago and transferred to Baylor but wasn’t drafted after his senior season. He signed with the Brewers for a $500 bonus. Orf spent a season in rookie ball, a season at high Single-A, a season-and-a-half at Double-A and nearly 300 games at Triple-A before finally getting the call to the majors. 

“I had a big day, hit two homers and a double and a single, so I was feeling good anyway,” Orf said. “Came back to the locker room and was changing. You feel invincible after a day like that. Then skip came in and made the announcement that I was going to the big leagues. It’s that moment that you train for and wait for and dream of happening. To be with my teammates at the time, it made it all that more special, to share it with them.”

In his first big-league game, he led off the 10th inning by getting on base in a way that brought back memories for Perkins: Orf was hit by a pitch. Orf went 2-for-21 in the bigs before he was sent back to Triple-A Colorado Springs, but one of those two hits was a home run hit off Twins All-Star Jose Berrios. 

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Nate Orf in 2008, Tony Perkins in 2011 and Brett Graves in 2011 (Photos courtesy of Tony Perkins)

Graves, who was three years behind Orf, was Howell’s star quarterback, too. One moment, right after the Vikings lost their final game of his senior football season, still stands out. 

“In the midst of being upset and everything, I saw Coach Perkins and I just had a such a sense of, ‘It’s baseball season now,’ ” Graves said. “I went up to him and he gave me a hug. I said, ‘Coach, let’s go win state. Let’s go get a ring.’ ”

By that point, Graves was a star on the diamond. He was part of an outstanding senior group — 10 from his graduating class went on to play college baseball — that had arrived on the varsity level as sophomores. Graves, who played shortstop when he wasn’t on the mound, was more productive as a hitter (.444 average) than as a pitcher (4.36 ERA) his sophomore season, when Howell went 16-14. He dominated both disciplines as a junior, at the plate (.477 average, 40 runs, 26 RBIs, 19 stolen bases) and on the mound (1.76 ERA) as Howell won 23 games.

In Graves’ senior year, Perkins thought he saw his dream of winning the school’s second state title end on April 1, though.

“I’m at the park and Brett comes walking in on crutches,” Perkins said. “I’m like, ‘There goes our whole season. He’s our guy.’ But it was an April Fool’s joke. You know when your stomach’s dropping? That was one of those.”

Graves laughs.

“I showed up on crutches just to see his jaw drop open and his heart drop, then be like, ‘Nah, I’m just kidding.’ I wouldn’t have let him on too long. That would have been cruel,” he said. “I liked giving it to Tony a little bit. It’s not the hardest to get him riled up. He took it well.” 

The Vikings went on to win the state title, getting the ring Graves and Perkins talked about on the football field, and finished with a 32-3 record. Graves hit .441 with six homers, 35 RBIs, 40 runs and 12 stolen bases and fashioned a 1.95 ERA. He was named the Gatorade Player of the Year in Missouri. 

“That year still runs chills up your spine,” Perkins said. “Brett and his group created memories I’ll always have.” 

Graves was picked in the 26th round of the 2011 MLB draft by the Cardinals but opted to attend Mizzou instead; he was chosen in the third round of the 2014 draft by the A’s. The Marlins claimed him in the Rule 5 Draft in December 2017, and he injured his oblique trying to make the team this spring. 

He made seven rehab appearances in the minors, then got the long-awaited call to the majors. In his one-batter debut, he got Mark Trumbo to ground out. The next batter he faced was Nolan Arenado, and he struck him out. 

“I like Gravesy’s stuff,” Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto told Sporting News at the All-Star Game. “He’s got a really, really good fastball, a really good curveball. He’s got a cutter that he’s been throwing recently, and he’s got good command of it and gets lot of ground balls with it.” 

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The extended run of success at Howell isn’t random, of course. Assistants like Darren Cissell — a former Howell star who was an 18th-round pick of the Giants in 1997 — help foster a sense of buying into not just a team, but a baseball culture. 

“I think that just kind of opens up your world, opens up your mind to what you might be able to accomplish,” Orf said. “To come up in a culture where other people have already made things happen, that just kind of helps you to dream bigger.”

And Perkins is the engine that keeps everything running.

“Tony’s extremely organized and detailed, with practice plans and such,” Graves said. “He such a good job of making them and running them, and just instilling discipline from Day One. I think that’s such a huge thing in any high school program. He’s very detailed. Everything posted for everyone to see, so everyone’s on the same page. I think that we always focused on the right details.”

For Perkins, his 23 years as the head coach have had an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy. 

“Practices are the same, how I approach kids is the same, how we work is the same. Even in my camps, I do the same things. I’ll tweak it here and there, but I do a lot of copy-and-pasting. It’s been successful,” he said. “When I’m sitting in my den looking at all the championship pictures up on the wall and Final Four pictures on the wall, it’s been one heck of a run, I’ll tell you that much. And those two dudes we’re talking about had a whole heck of a lot to do with that.”

It’s impossible to talk about Vikings baseball without mentioning two things everyone associated with the Howell program holds near to their hearts: C&H and Angelfire. For Perkins’ first two decades at Howell, the Vikings played their home games at C&H Ballpark, and it was unlike any other home-field environment in the St. Louis area. 

For starters, it was off campus, about a 15-minute drive from the high school. The facility has real stands, and it was always packed with people of all ages, there to watch baseball or just run around. On Howell game days, you had to arrive a half-hour early to find a parking spot. For playoff games? At least two hours early. 

“It just felt like home. When my brother Jaron played, I was up there as little kid watching those guys play all the time,” Orf said. “You think you might never be as good as them, and then you get there and start playing at that level and start producing, it’s fun to look back and remember.”

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2013 was Howell’s final season at C&H; for 2014 it moved to a new on-campus field. It’s a fantastic facility and it’s right at school and all, but it’s not C&H.

“That was the hardest part about leaving that place,” Perkins said. “A lot of blood, sweat and tears there. Heck, I’m working there now, mowing grass and doing prep stuff there. Oh, yeah. It’s hard for me to get away from that place.” 

Now, Angelfire. That’s the domain host for the Howell baseball program’s website, with the old-school address: www.angelfire.com/mo2/fhbb/. It has the same look now as it did when Perkins first created the site, from a computer in his P.E. office back around 1998. You’d be hard-pressed to find a Viking alum — or fan — who doesn’t still have that one bookmarked.

“I was on that thing constantly, man,” Graves said. “They had the forum or blog or whatever, before Twitter was a thing. Everything for the program was on there, so we were on there constantly.” 

The Howell baseball Hall of Fame is there. The schedules for the varsity, sophomore and freshman squad, current and archived yearly stats, school records, alums who played college ball, summer camp info, alumni golf tournament results, tips to making the team, coach bios and dodgeball tournament results are there. The biggest difference between the early days of the site and now? Four state championships to document. 

Both Orf and Graves started laughing when Angelfire is mentioned.

“That’s probably one of the only websites I’ve got ingrained in my mind,” Orf said. “Having the two older brothers in the program, that was something I’d look at, pore over the records and see all those huge numbers guys would put up. I went there pretty frequently and checked things out. When I left, to have left my mark with the records and all that stuff, for me that was pretty cool. Angelfire.com, I’ll never forget that one.”

Both Graves and Orf are all over the Angelfire site, but now they have their own player pages in a couple of other pretty cool sites, too: MLB.com and Baseball-Reference.com.

Ryan Fagan

Ryan Fagan Photo

Ryan Fagan, the national MLB writer for The Sporting News, has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2016. He also dabbles in college hoops and other sports. And, yeah, he has way too many junk wax baseball cards.