On Tuesday, Cape Henlopen baseball coach Ben Evick’s summer camp in Lewes, Delaware, for 14 eighth and ninth graders featured three prominent alumni — Oakland A’s shortstop Zack Gelof, Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman and Zack’s younger brother Jake Gelof, and the program’s latest to join the professional ranks, Washington Nationals draft pick, pitcher Luke Johnson.
“I was like, ‘Hey, you guys get a guest appearance here. This guy just got drafted [Monday] by the Washington Nationals,’” Evick said, referring to Johnson. “They started clapping for him. They thought it was really cool.”
The moment was nearly as special for Johnson, who starred with the Vikings and UMBC.
“I’ve played on that field for the last 15 years of my life,” he said. “Just to walk onto that field and see kids in Cape hats supporting me, it felt pretty cool because I knew I was in that situation before when I was young and not really knowing what I was going to do.”
Johnson, 22, is where the next generation of baseball players aspire to be after Washington selected him in the 10th round of the MLB draft, 311th overall. He became the 10th Retriever to hear his name announced during the draft and the first since the Los Angeles Dodgers used a 10th-round choice on Kevin Lachance in 2016.
UMBC coach Liam Bowen said while he wasn’t surprised Johnson was selected, he was anxious to see his player get rewarded for a career that included being the first person in its 34-year history to win the America East Pitcher of the Year Award outright twice (2023 and 2024), and the first player in UMBC history to earn a spot on the America East first team three times.
“I know that I’ve always had a lot of confidence that he would be successful in pro baseball. I’m just glad he found an organization that saw the same thing,” Bowen said. “It only takes one scout to believe in you, and Bobby Myrick, the [Nationals] scout who signed him, I thought he did a great job of just appreciating what’s special about him and seeing that he’s worthy of a chance.”
Johnson’s roots in baseball are hereditary. His grandfather, uncle and father played the sport with the latter, Drew Johnson, playing third base at Maryland and spending the 1992 season in the Orioles minor league system.
But Johnson wasn’t a one-sport specialist. He is an avid surfer, became an All-State soccer player after picking it up as an eighth grader and sounded grateful that his parents, Drew and Karen, gave him the freedom to dabble in other interests.
“Some guys, if you’re playing every day and every year, you can fall out of love with the sport, especially at a young age,” he said. “So I think having multiple things definitely helped me.”
In 2018, Johnson was the starting second baseman for a Cape Henlopen team that featured four eventual MLB draft picks — the Gelof brothers, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Mason Fluharty and now him — and captured the Delaware state championship. Evick recalled Johnson making an over-the-shoulder catch in shallow right field and doubling up a runner on third base to preserve a one-run lead in an eventual 5-3 win in the title game.
“All of the momentum swung right back to us in that moment,” Evick said. “I personally think that saved that game for us and allowed us to win the state championship.”
Johnson chose to continue his career at UMBC because of its proximity to home and the coaches’ recruitment of him as a two-way player. But after he spent his first two seasons pitching and playing first base, Bowen and his staff asked Johnson to concentrate on pitching.
While acknowledging that Johnson “didn’t love” the idea initially, Bowen said Johnson’s command of a deceptive fastball, knee-buckling changeup and dancing cutter made him an ideal top-of-the-rotation starter.
“And in our sport, the guy on the mound is the most important guy and has the biggest chance to dictate the outcome,” Bowen said. “So with all of those things, I think it got pretty clear after a while that he was really special on the mound and that we needed him to focus his energies there.”
Both Luke and Drew Johnson credited Bowen with correctly identifying the right trajectory.
“I really attribute it to Liam Bowen and his coaches at UMBC for taking him and those raw materials,” Drew Johnson said. “While we may not have wanted him to stop being a two-way player, now it makes sense because they were really maximizing his best assets.”
Luke Johnson, who pitched for scouts from the Nationals and Orioles, said he wasn’t entirely sure when he would get drafted until Monday when assistant scouting director Reed Dunn called him at his family’s home after the ninth round and informed him that Washington would pick him in the 10th.
“It was crazy,” he said, ranking it as a top-three lifetime moment along with surfing in Costa Rica and the 2018 state championship. “It was very surreal to hear that I was going to actually get selected, and then to hear my name on the TV being surrounded by my loved ones, it was something very special and a day to definitely remember.”
The Nationals choosing Johnson presents a slight dilemma for the family, which has been faithful to the Orioles. (Luke Johnson said his father and Hall of Fame shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. were his childhood role models.) Many of their relatives — who live in the Washington metro area — are Nationals fans, but Drew Johnson said he can adjust.
“None of the other teams picked my son in the 10th round,” he said. “So there’s going to be a fair amount of loyalty there, and I’m not going to have any problem putting that hat on.”
Luke Johnson said he has another week to spend with family and friends before traveling to West Palm Beach, Florida, to join the Nationals rookie league. He said he is already looking forward to the chance.
“It feels so special to be given this opportunity and I’m taking it in,” he said. “I’m enjoying these last couple days of home, but I’ll be ready when I get down there and ready to just keep working hard.”