Lincoln Prep’s Lee Allen Jr. honing baseball skills at KC Urban Youth Academy and beyond

As a constant stream of freezing rain and snow drizzled down upon Kansas City over the weekend, turning surfaces slick and cold, Lee Allen Jr. arrived at the baseball field for workouts Saturday morning.

His cleats, though, kicked up dust in the infield as he gathered with others around Atlanta Braves third-base coach Ron Washington.

The weather enveloping Allen’s familiar settings at the Kansas City Urban Youth Academy wasn’t suitable for any sort of outdoor workout, but here, at the Los Angeles Angels’ Tempe Diablo Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, the weather was fine: mid-40’s Fahrenheit at 7:45 a.m., and that would slowly creep up to the 70’s during the day, a day full of baseball.

Lincoln Prep junior shortstop Allen, along with Lee’s Summit West catcher Jared Fulghem, was among those who got a recent weekend full of baseball at the Major League Dream Series in Arizona.

“It was an honor when I found out, I didn’t believe it was true,” Allen told The Star. “I was just truly blessed and honored to have the opportunity to go down there and compete with all these other top prospects in the game, all these other top kids in high school.”

Allen was one of about 80 high school baseball players invited to the elite-level Dream Series last weekend, which offers the chance for athletes to learn from and perform in front of current and former Major League coaches, players and scouts.

The four-day camp allowed these players to showcase their skills in front of the likes of World Series-winning coaches Mike Scioscia and Jerry Manuel.

Allen worked primarily with Washington, who did morning workouts as well as position group training with the infielders. Washington, currently with the Braves, took the Texas Rangers to back-to-back World Series in 2010 and 2011.

Washington took his group of high school infielders through the basic fundamentals of the game.

“They’d do one-on-one work with us also,” Allen said. “So it was really fun having that experience to learn from these coaches that have been in the game this long.”

But it was no fluke that Allen was selected as one of the top 80 players in the nation. The junior has a second home in the Urban Youth Academy.

“They do a lot for me. Even just having a place for me to just go and workout and train and work on my skills and my passion,” Allen said. “Because if the academy wasn’t down there I wouldn’t have anywhere else to go down here in the city for me to go to and work out.”

He also makes it an emphasis to get to know everyone at the academy — and to make sure they know him. His efforts paid dividends, as it was Urban Youth Academy executive director Darwin Pennye who nominated Allen for the Dream Series.

Allen has been especially active at the Youth Academy since arriving at Lincoln Prep over two years ago. Lincoln Prep uses the UYA’s fields for practices and games.

Trying out for the Tigers’ baseball team at just 14, Allen immediately featured for the varsity squad and quickly became one of its best players.

“He started varsity at shortstop, which in the infield is the most important position,” said Lincoln Prep head coach Kevin Bair. “He was one of our best pitchers at that point too, so the talent definitely has been there. His maturity and leadership have been fun watching that develop.”

It’s Allen’s leadership that sets him apart — both in the classroom and on the field — according to Bair. He’s also Allen’s journalism teacher, where he saw Allen immediately become the best video editor in his class during Allen’s freshman year as well.

“He works hard and focuses and makes sure he has the grades, and because he’s such a natural leader the students around him follow,” Bair said.

Allen wants to become a sports journalist. He’s a multi-sport athlete. He plays baseball, basketball and football at Lincoln Prep. His love for sports is a huge reason why Allen wants to go into sports journalism — if his baseball career doesn’t work out, of course.

“Baseball will be my first love, and baseball is going to be the sport that I’m going to decide to keep going through in college and after college,” Allen said. “But (sports journalism) is something I always have fun in and would like to do also after.”