There’s a ‘type’ attracted to, and associated with Joey Gomes’ line of work.

They might as well arrive for a session with the private hitting coach wearing a neon yellow jumpsuit and a sign plastered on their forehead, reading, “Look at me.”

With an often-un-earned swagger, wide-eyed young athletes stroll into their inaugural session with Gomes like a walking resume – their hat, shirt, and shorts plastered with their greatest achievements as a self-proclaimed veteran.

If you can’t tell they play baseball, the outfit failed.

“When I meet kids for the first time now, they come in head to toe with every accolade they have ever gotten,” Gomes said. “You get the Perfect Game All-American shirt. You’ve got the Under Armour All-American hat. You’ve got the Area Code baseball bat. You’ve got the USA batting gloves.

“As they walk in, they’ve kind of got their frickin letterman jacket.”

Gomes received a call in 2012 from the father of a kid whom, he had been told, was a mythical figure roaming around the Petaluma, California little-league fields. It was a one-on-one 30-minute lesson scheduled just after Spencer Torkelson had finished up one of the most historic little-league seasons in the Northern California town.

Rick Torkelson walked his son into the batting cages where Gomes rented space. The blaring music littered with curse words lit his eyes up — an off-putting introduction to his son’s next progression.

This was a foreign baseball environment to the Torkelsons, one that stereotypically attracts the letterman crowd and not those that look like they could have come straight from their eighth-grade history class.

“I’ll tell you what (he was probably wearing),” Gomes said, “it was probably a white t-shirt and Vans.”

It was an unexpected start to a session of which seven years later, Gomes can recall nearly every detail.

After Rick followed the local recommendations and called for a lesson, Gomes penned Torkelson’s name on his schedule. Within days, he had received several text messages from area coaches informing him on what they called, “The Legend of Torkelson.”

The Legend of Torkelson.

That little league season, at age 12, Torkelson blasted 36 home runs, a number that still stands as a Petaluma Little League record. He’s modest about it, quickly reminding those who ask that he had a juiced-up metal bat and only had to clear a short 200-foot fence. Oh, and possibly undersold the number.

“It was 38 (home runs), but he’ll say it was only 36.” Rick jokes.

Hidden away in his house, Rick has scorebooks stacked up like scrapbooks. Long before he could hop online and find Spencer’s games and stats in three seconds, he recorded them himself.

As Rick rattles off Spencer’s stats, down to nearly the exact batting average, it seems obvious they’re just for show at this point.

Or perhaps they’re a reminder to all those who come calling that the numbers are real. That beyond his obvious bias, his son was really, really that good. Scratch that. Special. His son was special -- still is -- and probably will be for a long time.

After three years and 54 home runs at Arizona State, Torkelson is expected to be the no. 1 pick to the Detroit Tigers in Wednesday’s shortened MLB Draft. jkj

“The conversations with scouts about Tork have all been like, ‘Is this guy for real? Is he the real deal?’ The answer is simple,” said former Oklahoma State coach Tom Holliday last year, who coached Torkelson on the Cape Cod League’s Chatham Anglers. “I think I’ve had in my coaching career somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 first-rounders. As long as he doesn’t get hurt, he’s a first-rounder.”

Should he be the top selection, Torkelson would join Rick Monday (1965), Floyd Bannister (1976) and Bob Horner (1978) as the only Sun Devils to go No. 1. He would also be the first ASU alum since Antone Williamson (1994) to hear his name amongst the top five picks of the draft.

But Williamson is perhaps the perfect example of why people are hesitant to start peppering young stud’s names with definitives. He hit .357 with 33 home runs in his three years in Tempe before heading to the 69-win Milwaukee Brewers. After one year, he was the 64th-highest-rated prospect in the league. At the end of his big-league career, he hadn’t gone to the plate 64 times.

The plan, however, was so perfect. Williamson was going shoot through the minors and be the power-hitting first baseman of the future. Sound familiar? The fans who littered Twitter with the #TankforTork moniker would say so.

Talk to anyone who has ever met Torkelson, and they’ll emphatically repeat the same sentiment: He’s different. They have to keep saying it over and over because they want to get it through. They know it sounds cliché. But he is; he is different.

They’ve seen him do extraordinary things, things that make them whole-heartedly believe he will not fail on his path to MLB stardom as others before him have. You see, the pressure of that notion is so grand, so towering that many fail because of it.

But making the big leagues was never a dream to Torkelson. It was a plan.

Where’s the pressure in that?

“My dad would always say, ‘You know I never tell you to go to the gym?’ and I’m like, ‘I know. I just go,’” Torkelson said. “He never tells me to go hit. I think you’re kind of born with it, and you either have it, or you don’t -- and the guys that do have it will end up making it.”

****

Gomes isn’t a fan of egos. Especially when they’re 12. He’s the one whose clientele is full of recent or future draft picks. In his brother Jonny, he’s the one with a bloodline that includes a World Series champion. And he’s the one with ten years of professional baseball experience under his belt. Maybe some kids don’t think that’s enough.

Perhaps they know better.

Gomes thought that was going to be Torkelson.

“I’m like, ‘Oh, f---,’” Gomes said. “If he’s got little-league coaches texting a hitting guy about him, I’m like, ‘What am I going to tell the kid?’ I start thinking about it, like how am I going to handle this?

“If the kid just got done breaking the f------ home-run record in Petaluma and I tell him to make an adjustment; he might look at me like, ‘Are you sure, bro? I just went 4-for-3 yesterday. You sure I need to make that adjustment?’”

The session wasn’t going to prove Torkelson could hit. Opposing coaches don’t reach out in droves unless there’s some off-the-cusp talent. Gomes wasn’t trying to be the local PGA Pro, overanalyzing and fine-tuning a swing that was already doing wonders.

But he could figure out more about this Torkelson kid as a person. How could I test this so-called legend, Gomes thought?

Basically, do nothing. See how he reacts.

For the 30 minutes, Gomes stood off to the side as Torkelson hit off a tee. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. There was no speak of torque, hip rotation, stance, leg kick, or even really hitting the ball.

This was a highly-recommended hitting coach that had clients on the verge of getting a signing bonus larger than his annual salary, and he wasn’t giving a 12-year old a single tip. Like a fire alarm with its unnerving repetitiveness, Gomes repeated the same line: “Try to keep it up the middle. Try to keep it up the middle.” No more.

“Spencer Torkelson did something only a handful of kids have ever done,” Gomes admitted. “He listened. He didn’t say a word. I think I even said some really rudimentary stuff. Like things your dad told you. And he did it. He didn’t like say, ‘Yes, sir,’ but he was like, ‘Absolutely. Man, OK, this is great.’ I’m like, ‘Wow, this kid is different.”

For the first time, Gomes felt like Mr. Miyagi. Here was his Daniel-san ready to learn from a guru and instead was waxing cars and painting fences. It told him nothing, yet spoke volumes.

Gomes didn’t give Torkelson another lesson. To Torkelson’s baseball progression, Gomes couldn’t make himself most useful as a coach.

A mentor, though? There, he could shed wisdom about things this 12-year old didn’t already excel at – the things that have tripped up hordes of so-called unequivocal talents like Torkelson and the tips that don’t get mentioned at a Perfect Game showcase.

The actual art of hitting is often left out of the conversations. Why spend so much time working on something largely dictated by someone standing 60-feet, six inches away? Who knows what that guy is going to do?

Everything up to that point, though? That’s in the hitter’s hands.

“The process,” as Torkelson refers to it.

Eight years later, it’s hardly changed. If it did, Torkelson wouldn’t be where he is. He’d be just another kid, another “mental midget,” as he calls them.

What is a “mental midget,” you ask?

To Torkelson, those are the players that think they’re better than the game, who believe they are too good to fail, to strike out, to slump. The ones who think a slump means everything thing they’ve learned, everything they were taught, and everything they’re doing is a calumny.

Maybe some poor at-bats require a bat change. A few more and they’ve tweaked their pre-game routine. After a multiple-game slump, they have a new swing. Who knows, later on, they’re changing lottery numbers on a weekly basis or sprinting across the casino to bet black because it just hit.

OK, maybe that’s too far. But the point remains, Torkelson believes, above everything, process and routine -- or perhaps the failure to develop each -- cause talented prospects to drop like flies.

“That’s why guys with the most talent you hear about don’t make it,” Torkelson said. “0-for-10’s happen in baseball. You have to stick to a routine and stick to a process.”

———

Torkelson’s Twitter bio reads, “Enjoy the process to being great.”

It’s been there ever since he made an account at 14 years old. The night before he shipped off from Cape Cod to North Carolina for Team USA practices, he was asked what it means.

Torkelson has thought about this before. A lot. There’s no hesitation in his voice. He just goes. This isn’t about baseball anymore. It’s about being the best person you can be. Learning from mistakes. Chasing goals.

Torkelson’s goal just happens to be different than most of his age. He wants to make the major leagues. Always has. The painting of San Francisco’s Oracle Park in his bedroom -- he was going to play there. The 30 MLB pennants on his wall -- he was going to play for one of them.

He was in the Arizona State weight room in 2017. A freshman who barely cracked Baseball America’s Top 500 in a ranking system that favored nearly a dozen of his teammates was working out. In for a team lift that included no coaches, he went about his business.

This was the same kid who consistently ran into his parent’s bedroom, poking and prodding his dad with that loud whisper eager kids seem to perfect, “Dad, it’s almost five.” That’s 5 a.m. Hockey practice started at 6 a.m. So naturally, 9-year old Spencer Torkelson needed to get there on time.

This was the same kid who, during his senior year of high school, politely asked if he could call Philadelphia Phillies’ area scout Joey Davis back. He was in the middle of a post-game weight-lifting session and wanted to finish up.

“So, I called his dad and said, ‘Hey Mr. Torkelson. (Spencer) just played a game. Does he always lift?” Davis asked Rick. “He says, ‘He takes one day off a year from lifting in the weight room … and it’s on Christmas.’ That’s the type of kid we’re dealing with here.”

Torkelson’s workouts or training has never been dictated on who was -- or wasn’t -- there with him. Others, he learned, didn’t abide by that logic. A veteran teammate waltzed into the weight room, dilly-dallied around for a few minutes, then headed for the door, out to explore all the non-baseball-related activities Tempe has to offer.

Torkelson stared. Part disgust. Part disappointment. He was brought into ASU with a loaded freshman class that, in head coach, Tracy Smith’s recruiting pitch was going to help return the Sun Devils to the College World Series. After the worst season in program history, what right did this guy have not to contribute?

“That’s why you’re going to graduate from here,” Torkelson yelled to deaf ears.

“What I was saying is, you don’t want to get drafted?” Torkelson said. “You’re going to go through the motions, get your free education, then you’re going to be done. You’re going to be working a nine-to-five.”

To those around him, it became evident well before he could drive that Torkelson may not have to work a nine-to-five. Some earlier than others.