The first step toward making the Major Leagues is getting noticed by scouts.

Over 100 inner-city youth from New England checked that box at the second annual Northeast Scouts Clinic, held at Polar Park, home of the Triple-A Worcester Red Sox, on Thursday.

The day-long event -- the only MLB Develops showcase facilitated and run by scouts -- provided a unique opportunity for underprivileged youth to work on their craft while making first impressions on nine MLB area scouts.

¡°This is a hugely valuable day, because we get to interact with kids from inner cities and introduce them to Major League Baseball in a way that's unique,¡± said Matt Hyde, the Northeast area scout for the Yankees. ¡°It's the scouting community being hand-in-hand with them, working with them, teaching them and also evaluating, so it's a hugely productive day in building a history with some of these players.¡±

In conjunction with MLB Develops, Hyde worked with Next Level Boston director and head coach Christian Ortiz to get the event off the ground last year. Ortiz, who started the nonprofit travel baseball organization to help Boston¡¯s inner-city youth in 2014, used his network to spread the word about the inaugural event. This year, many of the players participated again, dozens of them from Ortiz¡¯s teams.

¡°A majority of the [players at this event] are from Next Level Boston,¡± Ortiz said. ¡°They get to learn from scouts that they want to be in front of. Eventually, one day, they want to be professional baseball players, so just to learn from them and get insight means a lot to them.¡±

One of the returning players was shortstop Armanis Romero. The Stonehill College commit, who plays for Ortiz at Boston English High School, credits last year¡¯s event for helping him improve as a fielder.

¡°This program is great because even though it's only one day, in a few hours you can learn a lot of stuff,¡± said Romero, who has been involved with Next Level Boston since he was 14. ¡°We have like 10 scouts here that are really helping us and also evaluating us at the same time.

¡°I¡¯m definitely working on my accuracy skills from shortstop and being more athletic in my hips. I also worked on that in the offseason after I learned it from this event last year.¡±

Romero was part of the afternoon session -- grades 9-12 -- that was structured as a typical scouting showcase. The players were evaluated for defense, batting practice and baserunning.

The morning group -- grades 7-9 -- focused more on fundamentals.

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¡°This is a group of kids that maybe doesn't have access to the travel and the different venues that we see kids at on a national basis, so this is a chance for them to catch one of the scouts' eyes,¡± said Paul Murphy, an area scout for the Dodgers. ¡°Maybe it develops down the road into a college situation where we pass their names along, and obviously, under the best circumstances, if it happens to turn into a professional opportunity, that's even better.¡±

In addition to getting on scouts¡¯ radars, the clinic enabled some of its participants to compete in later MLB Develops events and the Area Code Baseball Games.

¡°This year's Area Code team had four kids from New York City play on the team,¡± Hyde said. ¡°I think that goes to show these clinics help find players, and they start developing that relationship.¡±

MLB Develops will conduct a similar event at St. John's University in New York on Oct. 4 and could serve as a springboard for further expansion.

¡°It sounds like the Midwest wants to follow the lead here,¡± Hyde said. ¡°It really should become a national thing where the scouting communities in all different parts of the country do these sorts of clinics because we need to keep building the game.¡±