Let me just say Auntie is the bomb for Zander support staff. Hate granddad can't come as much as he did. But the Connell's love them some Z also but not near as much as greasemachine.
I'm guessing every kid had that game or games that set them apart and made them recruitable as they say.
Kirby's game was when he was 14 playing in 17U WWBA with a team from New Jersey he had never met until 30 minutes before game time. Threw a 6 inning shutout with 15 ks with 1 hit and had a HR and another hit against the #1 team in the nation at the time that ended up winning the tournament. He had them beat through 6 and cruising. The coach of that team pulled him and put in his STUD as he said. He got roped for 10 runs in the 7th and they lost. The fact that he looked 14 at the time against these huge guys and kept sitting them down was impressive to scouts. It was funny because they went to the parents of that team and they said we have no clue who this kid is. Finally a friend who was a recruiter came over and asked if this was "one of mine." When I told him he was Kirby, he said "that can't be little Kirby." Most of the top schools recruited his middle brother Kevin who is 8 years older so they all remembered the little kid running around the field and taking in and out and hitting bp with Kevin's team.
He followed that up with a 16U team the next week that he had never played with and hit a moonshot HR and had another impressive outing against a kid from NY throwing 96. That opened the floodgates for his recruiting. As much as it could back then for a 14 year old kid. That summer he played in the 18U, 17U, 16U, 15U and 14U WWBA all with teams he had never met except 1.