My Experience of Baseball in my Lifetime

This week's blog post will be about me and my life and experience of baseball. I have been playing baseball since I was 3 years old. Since I’ve been 3 years old, I have gone through just about it all in terms of a player. I started by playing in my backyard with my parents and they claimed after the first time I swung a bat, I never wanted to put it down. As I continued to play baseball throughout my life, I continued to love the sport more and more and it shows to this day.

Throughout my playing career I have done so much that most baseball players do not or will not get to do. To start off, I started to play travel baseball when I was 10 years old. While in my first year of travel ball, our team made it to States which is extremely hard to do and very impressive for that age. We would go on but lose in the Little League World Series qualifiers. This would go on for another two years where the same result happened, but it is still an achievement I take highly in my playing career. Also, at the age of 12 I taught myself how to switch-hit and would hit a homer from both sides which not many players can say they have done. I have also hit more homeruns than I can count, and I have a grand slam too. At the age of 13, I threw my first of four no-hitters which is also another feature that many pitchers have not done. In my 8th grade year, I would end up winning the League MVP for all the middle schools in our conference. Once I reached high school, I made the freshman team for high school. Also, as the season progressed, I started to receive interest from colleges for future potential places for me to play and get an education. During my freshman year I had the best batting average and ERA (earned run average) on the team, as well as our team went undefeated that year. This would go onto the summer and fall seasons. My first summer and fall season of high school level baseball in the travel industry we played all over the east coast from Pennsylvania all the way to Georgia up. My sophomore year, I made the junior varsity team. During my sophomore season, I had the team's second-best batting average, as well as the team's best ERA. We would go in and have a season record of 18-1 which was the best JV team in school history. Yes, I know JV doesn't typically mean anything for a school team, but I found this to be an impressive feature. Once my JV season was over, I went on to do the same thing as last summer playing all the time all down the east coast, while getting more college interest, but to add to this I was able to communicate more with them. Adding on to this experience, in the offseason, I would start to train with Oakland A’s reliever Lou Trivino. We worked a lot of cleaning up my mechanics as well as adding velocity to all my pitches. This would continue into my junior season of high school.

Once my junior season came around, I would end up making the varsity team, but this year changed a lot about my baseball career. During this season I would be labeled as a pitcher-only. So for those of you who don't know what this means, it's what it says, I only pitch, I hit very little to not at all nor play any other position on the field. During the season I had 6 at-bats, this was because I was the number one option out of the bullpen, and I would hit if I was told I had to keep pitching. We ended up losing in the quarterfinals. This would then translate into the summer, where I was a pitcher only again, and I hit more in high school, but the summer was heavily showcase related. Showcases are designed for players or even whole teams to take part in events to get exposure in front of college coaches. The same thing would happen again as I would play all along the east coast in the same states as previously mentioned. This by far was the most stressful year for me baseball wise because I was trying to do too much instead of staying simple, so I struggled a lot when it would come to my gameplay. This would continue till my fall season. Once I hit my fall season, I was able to figure things out and everything went uphill from there, I finished my fall season having over 30 schools interested in me. In the off-season, I did the same thing as last time and trained again with Lou. The same things happened again where things were cleaned up and velocity was added. In the fall of my senior year, I decided to sign my National Letter of Intent to further my academic and athletic career at Barton College located in Wilson, NC. Heading into the spring of my senior year our team knew we had one goal in mind, which was the 6A 2019 State Championship was ours. My senior year I made the varsity team, and the rest was history. I hit my first high school homerun as I got more playing time as a position player, as well as so much more. That includes being the best baseball team in school history. We broke every school record that they kept track of which was team ERA (1.10 with 7 pitchers on record), team batting average (.426), team home runs (40), runs scored (153), most team wins (24), 7 league shutouts in a row and 9 shutouts in a row within those 7 league shutouts, first team in school history to go undefeated in conference play (12-0) and the first baseball team in school history to win a state championship. We were down in that game 3-0 till the fifth inning where we tied it up and then wouldn’t stop there. After this is when my baseball career took off.

I would then travel down to Barton to start my freshman year. During my freshman year, I was hurt for about 80% of the school year and my shoulder just never got better. While I was hurt, I learned a lot of new things about baseball that were not taught to me before, so out of the bad I got a major good. This information will help me when I get a coaching job. Once the spring hit, I only threw to two batters before I had my third shoulder injury and then a couple days later Covid-19 hit, and our season got canceled.

In the summer after my freshman year, I got my first coaching job for 11u and 13u travel baseball for 3Up3Down Baseball Academy based out of Reading, PA. Former Big-Leaguer Rich DeLucia is the owner of this academy, and I took even more from him and used him as my mentor for coaching. While coaching here I got two developmental teams to coach which I felt was huge for me right away because the kids wanted to learn and get better. While coaching these kids, both teams took huge strides and got better as the season progressed. While I was coaching in the summer, I was looking to transfer schools. In this process I chose Neumann University heavily because of the baseball coach and because I would have the chance to two-way.

In the fall, I got started as a two-way at practice. While practicing at Neumann I learned more than I did at Barton, and I used these techniques to help coach my new 11u team I was assigned in the fall with. This 11u team was another developmental team, and I was very big with their pitchers and catchers as these were the biggest holes of the team. During this my third string catcher would end up being my 1st string catcher while I also helped develop other players into pitchers so when the situation was right, I could make easier calls as a coach. Once the spring hit for Neumann I became our number 1 for the regular season before I started to have shoulder problems again. On the bright side of having these shoulder issues, I was able to win the starting first base job. In my first game as a position player, I hit two home runs for the first hits of my college career. Not many people can say they have done that either. I would never look back after winning the position. I would then finish the year with a .393 batting average.

Heading into the summer, I got my first internship with ESF and their Phillies Baseball Academy as a coach to teach young kids the amazing game of baseball. This was an all-summer long event and I learned some more great things that I plan to use for my coaching or scouting career in the future. While working in this internship I played in a summer league that had a lot of former professional baseball players in it. I learned a lot as I picked their brains about the game and what they see of me while I’m playing, and I took that all in and used it for myself to better myself as a player and as a future coach or scout. I also coached a 14u team over the summer and we won every tournament we played in. This was by far the best summer I ever had in my baseball career because everything I did was all baseball related and it made me love the game so much more.

Currently I am in my junior year entering my third season of college baseball where I will still be a two-way as my shoulder is feeling the best it's ever felt in years, and I’ve been told I will be the starting first baseman again for Neumann. The other day I also got accepted to play in the Collegiate League of Palm Beaches for their Parkland Sharks that my coach helped me to get here. For this league I will be playing in Spring Training facilities for the MLB as well as playing in front of scouts, hoping I get to reach my goal of playing professional baseball. As you can see, baseball has been my entire life and I want that to continue into my future.