At 6-5, Germantown Friends (Philadelphia) pitcher Jesse Biddle is big-time talent and could be top-40 draft pick.
Jesse Biddle remembers hearing the pop in his left elbow while having a catch with his father.
It wasn’t a pleasant sound, like the explosive pop that occurs each time a Biddle fastball lands in a catcher’s mitt. This pop had more of an eerie feel to it. 
Jesse Biddle is regularly clocked at 90 mph-plus.
Photo courtesy of Germantown Friends High School
He couldn't straighten his arm, though he didn’t want to say anything in fear the injury would shut him down. He pitched through it — striking out three in one inning of a Little League game. Soon after, Biddle found his left arm in a straight-arm cast.
Basically, he was pitching with a broken arm, and the pop was a fractured growth plate. That was when Biddle was 12.
In most cases, atrophy sets in and it takes time for an arm to recover from an injury like that. Not Biddle. He was a bio-mechanical marvel. His left arm was much stronger after the cast was cut off. It always seems that way for Biddle. Nothing has been able to get in his way.
It’s probably why the 6-foot-5, 235-pound Germantown Friends (Philadelphia) senior left-hander, who is already committed to Oregon, is one of the most coveted high school gems in this year’s upcoming Major League Draft, running from June 7-9.
During this season, Biddle has posted an 8-2 record, with a 1.20 ERA, with 125 strikeouts over 52 1/3 innings, giving up a mere nine earned runs all season.
He’s shattered every Germantown Friends record, with 19-, 17- and 15-strikeout performances this year, including a no-hitter in leading the Tigers to their seventh straight Friends Schools League title.
A four-year starter, Biddle, 18, has been clocked as fast as 96 mph, and has thrown consistently in the 91-93 mph range. But it is not just overpowering velocity that’s sitting down batters, Biddle has done it with movement, mixing in a curveball and shifty slider.
Of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball, 25 have visited his home, with the Atlanta Braves flying him down for a visit, and with planned visits to his hometown Phillies, along with the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Angels.
It all adds up to a special time for someone who quite literally has always stood head-and-shoulders above everyone else his age since birth.
Tall tales
David Biddle, Jesse’s father, likes to tell the story of when Jesse was in kindergarten, and the other children would always gather around him each morning when Jesse arrived at school. David found this interesting, and asked Jesse’s teacher why.
“Because Jesse is so much bigger than everyone else, they think he’s a superhero,” the teacher told David.
Around Chestnut Hill Hospital, the tag was likely "Superbaby." 
Biddle has always been a big star.
Photo courtesy of Germantown Friends High School
“Geez, Jesse was born big, 11 pounds, 1 ounce; the second-largest baby born at Chestnut Hill Hospital, back in the 1990s,” David said. “He was always bigger than everyone else, and the kids thought he was Superman, the Incredible Hulk, Shaquille O’Neal. I think of Jesse as a good-looking version of Shrek, and he always had this intense, competitive passion for sports.”
Biddle’s real transformation took place his freshman year.
He used to have a whip-like pitching motion when he threw. He was effective, throwing in the early- to mid-80s, topping out at 88. But Biddle was winning on brute strength and power.
Enter local coaches Chuck Bechtel and Chuck Bushbeck — Jesse’s “Two Chucks.”
They videotaped Jesse’s delivery as a freshman, and Biddle and his father both distinctly remember the two laughing: one, because Biddle was so ridiculously good for his age; and two, because he was so good despite his horrible mechanics at the time.
“I remember laughing myself,” Jesse recalled. “I was winning despite myself. I thought it was funny, too. Once I saw the video, it was kind of funny that I was doing almost everything completely wrong. I was in a little bit of a pitching slump at the time. My velocity was pretty good, but not where I wanted it to be. My mechanics weren’t perfect, either, far from where I wanted them to be.
“I listened to everything they had to say that day. I bought into their system, though I am someone who is open to criticism, if it’s constructive and helps.”
It helped. Biddle took off.
California trails
Though the Friends Schools League is not bristling with Division-I baseball talent, Biddle found a much more competitive level playing summer baseball for a NorCal baseball club based in San Francisco Bay Area, one which boasted former stars such as Jimmy Rollins and Pat Burrell.
Biddle pitched against Norcal the summer between his freshman and sophomore year of high school, losing a 2-1 duel to Scott Griggs, who eventually went to UCLA. Biddle’s performance raised many eyebrows on the Norcal side, so much so that Norcal coaches approached the Biddle family a month later at a tournament and asked if Jesse could join their team.
Jesse stayed with a host family and spent summer of 2008 in Oakland. It marked the first time in his life when he was just a pitcher.
“It was around this time, Jesse admitted to me, he loved baseball and that’s when I knew it was all over and that’s what he wanted to do and he’s doing it,” David Biddle recalls.
There’s a strong possibility Jesse will be selected on the first day of the draft, possibly among the top 40 chosen. He’s given every indication that he’s “signable,” now a code word among Major League scouts when it comes to high school prospects.
“I want to go, I want to play Major League Baseball, it’s been a dream of mine my entire life,” Jesse said. “Right now, the way I feel, whether I go to Oregon or to the major leagues, I’ll be playing baseball. I don’t know yet, not until maybe June 7. I’m pitching really well lately, and I want to keep going and take that into the minor leagues, if things work out for me and my family.
“I have a college scholarship to a great program at Oregon. That will be there, if things don’t work out. But in a minor-league program, they know what’s best to develop you as a pitcher. You go and learn how to pitch like a major leaguer. There’s a chance, a chance I’m willing to take in signing with a major league team.”
It’s not good to doubt Jesse Biddle. He's let nothing get in his way so far — not even a broken pitching arm.
Joseph Santoliquito covers high schools for the Philadelphia Daily News and is a contributor to MaxPreps.com. He can be contacted at JSantoliquito@yahoo.com.
