Todd Frazier's baseball career through the years 18 Gallery: Todd Frazier's baseball career through the years

PHILADELPHIA — It’s four hours before first pitch and all of the flat-screen TVs mounted in the visitor’s clubhouse at Citizens Bank Park are tuned to the Little League World Series game between Panama and Japan. For most of the Reds, it’s background noise, something to peek at from time to time as they get ready for a game with the Phillies. But for Todd Frazier, it’s something more than that.

“Every year, I watch as much as I can,” Frazier says. “Such a great memory.”

If you’re older than 25, there’s a good chance you know exactly what Frazier is talking about. Fourteen summers ago, a band of kids from the Toms River East American Little League won it all at Williamsport, beating Kashima, Japan, 12-9. They were known as The Beast From the East. They were the first team to bark out loud to the song “Who Let the Dogs Out?”

During their championship run, the boys from Toms River captivated the state, mostly because of Frazier, their 105-pound, freckle-faced leadoff hitter, shortstop and pitcher. The kid’s game was full of fire and his spirit was infectious. And as much as any good baseball person will tell you not to take individual exploits in Little League too seriously, you just had a feeling that Frazier would be different.

“He was our leader,” coach Mike Gaynor said Wednesday. “You didn’t have to know much about baseball to see that. But he led us in a nice way. I’ve had really good players who could be cruel to the other kids. Todd was so positive.”

And that feeling you had. Well, it turned out to be correct.

Though it hasn’t been an easy road for Frazier, who went on to star at Toms River High School South and Rutgers before signing with the Reds in 2007, that kid you watched back in the summer of ’98 has arrived, in a big way. If you were to tally the votes today, it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t be the National League Rookie of the Year.

He’s hitting .294 with 18 home runs and 55 RBI, and unless there are voters who are going to give bonus points to Bryce Harper for being 19 and a favorite of the highlight producers, the award is Frazier’s to lose now.

And, here’s the best part. If you got a chance to talk to Frazier, you’d walk away thinking he is pretty close to exactly the way you remember him as a kid.

“They named a sandwich after me at the Driftwood Deli on Fischer Boulevard,” he said Wednesday, with a goofy smile. “The Todd. Want to know what’s on it? Roast beef. Turkey. Bacon. American cheese. Yellow mustard. I tell them, no vegetables on it. And they load the meat on there. It’s so good.”

Hardly 105 pounds anymore, Frazier is 6-3, 215. But for Dusty Baker’s Reds this year, he’s been even bigger than that. After getting sent down to Triple-A just a few hours before Opening Day, Frazier was recalled on April 19 and has found his way into the lineup at first base, third base and left field, as the manager has had to deal with injuries to Scott Rolen and Joey Votto.

“I’ve gotten comfortable,” Frazier said. “And when I’m comfortable, I think I play fine. For me, it doesn’t matter what position I play. Third, first, left, even second or short. I just wanted an opportunity to open some eyes, and I think I’ve done that.

“I don’t need to put up Joey Votto’s MVP stats, but if I do the things I can do, I know I can help with the team game. That’s what I learned from my high school coach, Ken Frank. He always said, ‘Be a team-first guy.’ And I listened.”

Listened in Little League, says Gaynor. Listened in high school, says Frank, who remembers getting some grief from parents when he made Frazier a starter for powerful Toms River South when he was just a freshman. Listened at Rutgers, where his coach Fred Hill said Wenesday, “Todd came to me with a baseball personality that you just can’t teach. He’d go 4-for-4 and you’d think he didn’t get a hit. He’d go 0-for-4 and you’d never know it, either. You don’t get many kids like him.”

And now he listens to Baker, though the words coming out of the manager’s mouth in the coming days, weeks and months may become tough to take.

“Todd has had a tremendous impact on our team,” Baker said in his office at Citizens Bank Park Wednesday. “We lost Scott Rolen for a month and he played third base. We’ve lost Joey Votto for more than a month and he’s played first. And he got some key hits for us, big-time hits for us. But the problem I have is when Joey comes back, Joey is going to play. And nobody is better at third than Scott Rolen, and he is coming up quickly. The world is Frazier’s in the future.”

So, it’s quite possible the NL Rookie of the Year is going to become a pinch-hitter come October. You’d think that would be deflating. Then you remember, this is Frazier. And even Baker acknowledges, there’s something about this kid.

“He is confident but he is also very humble in his mannerisms and his ways,” Baker said. “He is probably more vocal than some rookies but that’s him.”

And if you were lucky enough to turn on ESPN Classic last week, late at night, as Gaynor did, and Frazier did, you got a chance to look back. There it was, in its entirety, The Beast of the East, taking down Japan, Frazier leading off the game with a home run and coming on to pitch and record the game’s final out.

“I watched it, the whole game, all over again,” Frazier said. “When our third baseman made an error, I felt bad, even though I knew we were gonna win.”

And when he returned to the present, Frazier was grateful as always.

“I pinch myself at everything that’s happening right now,” Frazier said. “I think it’s awesome to be considered as a Rookie of the Year candidate. But I want to get to the playoffs. I want to do some damage in the playoffs.”

You’re probably getting that feeling again. You’re allowed.

Jeff Bradley: jbradley@starledger.com; twitter.com/JerseyJBradley