ELDRED — Jim Pransky can’t help notice what’s changed in his years away from Eldred, Pa. Sitting in the gymnasium at Otto-Eldred for a middle school basketball game, Pransky points out, for instance, that the bleachers he’s sitting in used to extend farther back in his time at the school.

It’s been a long time since Pransky — who now lives in Iowa for his job as a minor league scout for the Colorado Rockies — has been back to his hometown. But you wouldn’t know it by the small crowd of old friends that surrounds him after the game. Even after all these years, people still remember the local boy who made it as both a baseball scout and author.

Pransky has been around baseball at nearly every level imaginable: from his time as a player in Little League and high school, to a college manager at St. Bonaventure and Quincy (IL) University, to a pro scout for the Houston Astros, Oakland A’s and Rockies, he has seen it all.

What’s held Pransky’s interest for all this time, even more than the action on the field, are the stories that he’s been witness to and the journeys made by untold numbers of players and coaches across all levels.

This love of storytelling led Pransky to take up writing about the sport that has defined his life. Inspired by the young athlete series of his youth, Pransky has written several young adult novels focusing on the character of Mickey Baker, whose life and experiences mirror those of Pransky himself.

“I changed names, I changed locations,” he said. “They’re fictional books, but there’s nothing that’s really fictional about them.”

Pransky’s latest book — titled The Tenor With the Golden Arm — focuses on the character of Tommy Bauer, an exceptional high school baseball player who also happens to be an extremely talented musician. Tommy is soon confronted with which path he wants to pursue.

According to Pransky, while baseball is the subject of the book, the crux of the story is focused on the people who make up Tommy’s support system and how they affect his life.

“It’s more of a relationship book,” Pransky said, “player and coaches, player and parents, in this case player and sister, musician and band.”

Pransky added that his desired audience for his books has always been young readers, and that he wanted his books “to end up in schools.”

“You want to be able to go back five years later and find that story.”

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While watching the basketball game, the other thing Pransky noticed was the size of the crowd for the middle school game.

“When I played varsity we didn’t have this many people watching us,” he said with a chuckle.

Pransky’s observation speaks to the increasing professionalization of youth sports across the country.

“When I was younger, in Little League I would play maybe 14 games the whole year,” Pransky said. “But I would probably play 80 games without a uniform on. After practice, you’d have a sandwich and go back out and play.”

Now days, it’s rare to find any youth sports outfit that isn’t highly regimented, and the cost of these programs is an issue facing many families.

“You have x amount of dollars… and now you have a choice to make,” Pransky explained. “Are you going to spend it on a $900 camp in Florida for a week? Are you going to give your kid instructional lessons from an ex-pro for a whole year? Are you going to go to showcases? It’s decision-making time. I think parents have to research that like you research what college you go to.”

While Pransky isn’t against trying to improve the fortunes of young athletes, he does worry about losing the elements of fun and surprise in sports. In his eyes, there really isn’t such a thing as a “hidden talent” anymore.

“With the internet and social media and the newspaper coverage and all the playoffs and showcases, nobody’s a sleeper,” Pransky said. “It’s really hard to be good and not have people know about it.”

One of the biggest pleasures Pransky has gotten out of his years as a scout has been the chance to seek out the players — and stories — that nobody else would think to look at.

“If I’m going to spring training, I’m going to the back fields,” he said. “These big-name guys are going to be on TV anyway. Why don’t I go see the young prospects?”

It was this idea that led Pransky to delve into the other part of his writing career: player biographies. Pransky has written bios on former major-leaguers Josh Kinney and Josh Rabe, John Flaherty and Neal Cotts — all of whom he knows personally through either scouting or coaching.

“I wanted to do biographies on guys that no one would ever do a biography on,” Pransky said. “It’s not that guys like Derek Jeter or Tony La Russa don’t have stories, but they don’t have all the stories. Sometimes it’s the lesser-known guys who’ve got great stories.”

Pransky points to Kinney in particular as why it’s the lesser-known tales that are so special.

Kinney — who attended Port Allegany High School and played college ball at Quincy — spent parts of five seasons in the Major Leagues, appearing in 93 games.

But he made his biggest impact on the biggest stage when he emerged as one of the unsung heroes of the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals team that won the World Series.

In that memorable postseason, Kinney pitched 6 ⅓ innings of scoreless baseball out of the bullpen. But beyond the statline, Pransky points to the circumstances that led to Kinney’s performance as the truly remarkable part of the story.

“The Cardinals are having trouble signing enough pitchers to fill out their teams. So they sign Kinney for a prime-rib sandwich. He literally signs for a prime-rib sandwich. And they’re thinking, ‘Well he’ll pitch a half-year and then we’ll cut him.’ But he had this slider, and by the time he got to the [World] Series, they’re not touching him.”

If there’s anything Pransky wants to pass down to aspiring athletes and writers alike, it’s to look beyond the obvious.

“The kid’s from Port Allegany,” Pransky said. “Those are stories. Those things, they’re not supposed to happen and yet they do happen.”