I will need to check if I am breaking some “fourth wall” writer’s rule by saying this, but it feels so good to be back on the keyboard. I have had trouble confronting my new reality the last seven weeks, while I also have struggled to put the last 14 months of baseball into words. Mentally, and yes this is very dramatic, it felt like something really important in my life vanished or evaporated into thin air right before my eyes. This April was the first time I was not on a baseball team playing the game somewhere since I was three years old. One afternoon I’m pinch-hitting in the 9th inning of a Big League Spring Training game battling to keep the game alive against Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano, then 15 hours later I get released by the Baltimore Orioles and I’m hauling up I-95 headed home thinking about what I did wrong and the people that I let down. 

The people I let down. The toughest part has been getting over that hump, relieving myself of that burden. I feel like I had what it takes to be a Big Leaguer, many coaches and teammates said the same thing to me. I also know for a fact that I gave it every ounce of effort that I had to the game that I love so much, and I truly believe that in my heart. I have had heavy but necessary conversations with my family, girlfriend, close friends, agent, and even Coach Penders, who took the time to have a long talk about this during the busiest time of the year for him, gotta love that guy. The one constant, for the most part, was that I am the only one who thinks I let anyone down. As long as I know that I gave it everything I had and I left it all on the field all these years, then I should have no regrets when the end arrives. 

So, is it officially over? I don’t know. When the best farm system in baseball released me from my Minor League contract on April 6, I thought another organization would come calling for sure. I thought, if the Orioles were not going to give me a shot after surviving the madness that was my 2021 season experience then another team would. Just one other organization had to be interested in giving a super-utility guy at least half a season to sink or swim, right? Nope. Sadly, my agent and I have heard very little after he sent out my information to nearly every other organization. If anything, my agent said he heard back from a few people within various organizations, not with interest, rather to convey that their systems were still log jammed with players even after making cuts at the end of Spring Training. 

At this point I am hoping lightning strikes and the phone rings, but who knows. The one thing I do know is after many days of thought and long conversations, I decided that I am not interested in playing for a team within any of the Independent Leagues. 

  I do not want to dive into why I made this decision too deeply. But there were a few reasons, one being that since the end of 2020 when the MLB took full control of Minor League Baseball (MiLB), they have downsized the number of teams in MiLB significantly along with the number of rounds in the MLB Draft. The MLB is making it harder for ball players, ages 18-21, to earn the shot of playing affiliated baseball. You can imagine a 26-year-old that was involved in 10 transactions from Low-A to AAA in 2021 with at best ‘streaky’ success, who then hypothetically signs an Independent Ball contract with a $10,000+ buyout clause… that guy is not going to be very high on a team’s acquisition totem pole. 

Which brings me to my other reason for deciding to not play Indy Ball: I thought about how I wanted to remember the end. Although my end with the Orioles was surely a struggle, there was a lot of beauty in that struggle. From the beginning of 2021 to the morning I got the ax at the end of this year’s Big League camp, there were a lot of situations I persevered through that many others could not or chose not to. Whether it was the scarce playing time, being shipped from team to team what felt like weekly, playing every position except centerfield, or mentally persevering through the things that I went through in Spring Training which I will touch upon later, I showed up and worked hard everyday. Some days were more difficult than others, but I brought my best effort and was a pro on a daily basis. In my fifth and potentially final Spring Training I earned my first three Big League Spring Training at bats and played a solid third base for a few innings. I hit a double against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Ed Smith Stadium, I made one of the best defensive plays of my life the following day against the Toronto Blue Jays, Jordan Romano sworded me on a slider, and that’s the end. 

“It’s okay,” my Old Man said to me. “You did good, my son. If it is the end, it is more than okay.” Walt has a way of making these short but memorable statements to wrap up the bigger message he is trying to get across. Do I want to remember the end like this? The beautiful struggle of a “Birdland” Minor Leaguer not necessarily getting the most fair shake, in my opinion, but going out about as close to the top as you can get without giving up. Or, do I grind through a season or two of unaffiliated professional baseball where even major success by no means guarantees an affiliated ball contract, and have that be the memory of the end of my professional days?

Now, do not get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for all Independent Ball teams in general. Not to mention, because of the downsizing of Minor League Baseball these teams are undoubtedly getting better than ever and the quality of the leagues will continue to rise for years to come. For a younger player to reach that level is a major accomplishment and those leagues can provide an avenue for those players to be seen when they were otherwise overlooked elsewhere. But for me, unless affiliated baseball comes calling, my gut tells me this Spring Training was how it was supposed to end. It is a tough pill to swallow, but it has been one hell of a ride and if it is the end I can rest easy at night and live my life in peace.

***

Before Spring Training I had the most productive offseason of my baseball career. Thanks to the UConn Baseball coaching staff for letting us come in to get work done with and around the team, I was hitting and lifting in Storrs five days a week. Usually joining me was Jack Sundberg but also many other former Husky teammates came in for reps. In live at bats I felt great going into the year, including plenty of knocks and a good amount of extra base hits according to the HitTrax technology. I wish I had the exact numbers, but I probably had more live at bats in Storrs than I did in Florida. 

Look, this part is definitely not to trash the Orioles by any means or how Minor League Spring Training was run over at Buck O’Neil Baseball Complex in Sarasota, I am trying to give my unabashed perspective on what happened. We played just 13 Minor League Spring Training games against other jerseys after one or two rainouts. All but two of those games were seven innings in length. In a normal Spring Training, there are four rosters representing each affiliate and Low/High-A play on the road and AA/AAA would play at home or vice versa. Until the last few games of spring, they grouped AA and AAA together but had two separate Low/High-A rosters due to “lack of pitchers”. There had never been a Spring Training like this where game reps were so hard to come by. Coaches and player development staff blamed the Pirates because we played them something like 10 out of 13 times, I really do not know. All I know is this Spring Training was not easy for anyone to get through. When you are a starter in one of these games you get two at bats, if you’re really lucky you get three at bats. If you were coming off the bench you get one at bat, if you’re really lucky you get two at bats. There were a few exceptions to that template, but in my case I started one game against another team and the rest I came off the bench; you can do the math.  

It was March 22, one week into Minor League Spring Training games and with very few reps to my name I went to talk to our head of player development about my situation. If you want the nitty gritty parts we can talk about it in person, all I can say about that conversation is that in the middle of Spring Training, he told me I will definitely be released at the end of Spring Training unless there were a lot of injuries to guys that were going to AA or AAA. That’s it? After not complaining at all through a 2021 season where it seemed like their only plan for me was to remain uncomfortable, after grinding my balls off all offseason, that’s it? He claimed it took seven at bats to come to the conclusion that I would certainly be released barring multiple injuries to my friends. It felt like a big fat ‘F-U’ to my sacrifice and hard work for the organization. I was dejected. I was in shock. 

After hearing that, I was just supposed to step back into the box the next day and act like any of it mattered? What else was there to do, though, quit? Never. I told myself I would never do that to the game. Although the next day when I exited the on-deck area for my first at bat of the day and looked at that batter’s box, I truly had no idea how I was going to get in there and compete. I had him saying “released” in my head over and over as I stared at the dirt and chalk next to home plate. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. 

I thought about being a Husky, a Housatonic Mountaineer, a Sharon Cyclone, and about how I owed it to those versions of myself to step in the box and to suck it up and compete. I owed it to all my hard work I put in over the offseason, as well as my whole life, and I owed it to the game; to be where my feet were in that moment and just play the game. I hit the second pitch of the at bat pretty well but on two hops right to the shortstop, ran like hell to first and trotted back to the bench. I sat down and stared at the field. Holy shit. I thought to myself. I got through that at bat. 

That at bat alone was a revelation. Why? I am not sure. For whatever reason, I felt like I was going to keel over dead if I even attempted to step in that right-handed batter’s box. Then I put a decently struck ball into play and grounded out, came back to the dugout and the brightness of the world returned to me. Nothing fazed me the rest of Spring Training, nothing anyone said or did weighed on me too much. I was playing with house money. I told myself I had to keep playing and working as hard as I could because I was showcasing my talents for other teams while playing Minor League games for the Orioles. 

I started getting hot at the plate the last week of Minor League games, spraying knocks around the field and finally hitting my first Home Run of the spring in Pirate City down the road in Bradenton. It was the best I had felt in Spring Training since 2019, before the most productive season of my career in Frederick and Bowie. Norfolk broke camp first and it was one day before all of the other teams were due to head north, and I still had no idea if I was going to get cut or make a roster. 

An interesting circumstance as a result of the MLB Player’s Strike was that Big League Spring Training games started late, causing them to break camp later than the Minor Leaguers. They kept myself and a couple other Minor Leaguers in Sarasota for a few more days to back up three Major League games. 

The first of the three Big League games I backed up was in Ft. Myers against the Minnesota Twins. I had been in uniform for one of these games a week earlier at Ed Smith Stadium against the Detroit Tigers, but the bench was absolutely flooded that time and my chance of getting in there that day was minuscule at best. In Ft. Myers however, the bench wasn’t too full and I had a decent shot. The back up guys from the Minor League side take a different bus that leaves much later than the Big League bus. Due to a miscommunication between the coaches, all eight of us back ups had to sneak into one of the Twin’s battings cages underneath Hammond Stadium and feed underhand flips to each other for 15 minutes before the game. In the next cage over were Gio Urshela and Carlos Correa getting pregame flips from a coach. Talk about a tale of two cages. 

Regardless of my likelihood of getting into the game, it’s always very cool to have a dugout perspective of these Big League Spring Training games. Sonny Gray started for the Twins on that cloudy afternoon and was nasty. He ended up tossing four perfect innings while racking up six punch outs. Urshela and Byron Buxton had a pair of doubles each while Correa had one for himself, and Miguel Sano demolished a 394 foot bomb just to the left of dead center field. The bats were cold for us Orioles until Cedric Mullins broke up the no-hitter in the 6th with a single. 

At the end of the 6th, myself and the other back ups began to get loose as one by one the starters accumulated their desired amount of at bats that game and packed up for the clubhouse. Fredi González, former Big League manager for the Marlins and Braves, is the current Orioles Bench Coach and tells us where we will be playing and where our spot is in the batting order. 

“Yahn!” He yelled looking around in circles for me.

“Yessir, right here,” I said as I stood next to him. 

“There ya are! Okay, so you’re going to third for Gutierrez but you’ll hit in Roogie’s spot.”

“Yessir, sounds good,” I replied. I looked up quickly to remember where we were in the order. Right as I did the guy I was replacing, Rougned Odor, smacked a hard grounder right at Correa’s replacement shortstop and that concluded the top of the 7th inning. I was about to enter my first Big League Spring Training game, but I was aware that an at bat was relatively unlikely for me with only two more chances for us at the plate. 

I threw quickly across the diamond with AJ Graffanino to get our arms hot and we took a few warm up ground balls as Mike Baumann made his way from the bullpen to the mound. I took a few chances to just look around the field and take in some of the moment, while still getting ready and focused. As I fielded a warm-up ground ball from first baseman Jacob Nottingham they announced, ‘Entering the game for the Orioles at third base for Kelvin Gutierrez, number 86, Willy Yahn.’ 

Catcher Anthony Benboom threw it down to shortstop Richie Martin at second base and it was time to shut that noise off in my head and focus. I flipped the ball to Big Mike and walked back to third. My Old Man always told me whenever I appear on television to make sure of two things: make sure you don’t pick your nose and do not throw a ball into the bushes. That’s pretty good advice, but I was more concerned about the latter. 

Ryan Jeffers led off the bottom of the 7th, a 2nd round draft pick in 2018 from the University of the Fighting Thorburn’s (some may also know it as UNC-Wilmington). I trained with Jeffers briefly over two offseasons when I made my stop to visit one of my favorite former teammates, Robbie Thorburn, in Wilmington en route to Spring Training in 2019 and 2020. He is a power-hitting catcher and Big Mike is a hard-throwing sinker-baller, so I had a feeling I was going to get a play right away if Jeffers got the barrel out on a Baumann Bowling Ball sink-piece. Jeffers got to a 2-0 count and sure enough, he turned around a 96-mph fastball and smacked a hard two hopper to my glove side. I took two quick shuffles to the left and watched it into the webbing of my new Rawlings blonde glove named Pearl. I took two more shuffles to gain ground towards first and delivered a toss to Nottingham’s chest, beating the less than fleet of foot catcher with time to spare. 

Benboom led off the top of the 8th with a single to left field. Then with one out, Ryan McKenna deposited a ding dong to left center field for our first runs of the game. This increased my chances of getting an at bat significantly. I would only need one person to reach base in the top of the 9th.

In the bottom of the 8th, Brent Rooker stepped up to the plate with two outs and worked a two ball and two strike count. Big Mike delivered a 98-mph fastball and Rooker rolled it over towards me, almost an identical grounder to the first play. Shuffled over, watched it into the glove, a few shuffles and a flip to first and I made my two routine plays without issue. Now, was I going to hit?

While I was getting my helmet and tarring up my bat, Zach Jarrett led off the 9th with a solid at bat to get to a 3-2 count. Unfortunately, he grounded out to second baseman Will Holland for the first out. I went onto the steps of the dugout as I was in the hole and started talking to one of the coaches, Christian Frias.

“Man, how bad do you want this one?” Frias asked, obviously referring to me getting an at bat.

“I want it like oxygen,” I said pretty seriously followed by us both laughing. As our laughter faded, Anthony Santander crushed a one hopper towards right field that looked like a guaranteed hit. However Holland, who was shifted into shallow right field from the normal second base position, made an incredible sliding play to snare the hotshot and get Santander by a step at first. I looked over at Frias and our smiles vanished. 

The left-hand hitting Graffanino stepped up to the plate and was able to work the count to 3-1. Just a walk or a knock here from Young Nino and I had my at bat. Graff got into a high fastball and smoked it to the opposite field and I really thought it was going to find some grass. Sadly, it hung up just long enough for the left fielder to run to his right and make the play and the game was over with a final score of 8-2. So close.

I recall going into that Pirates game the following day thinking that it was less likely than the Twins game that I would get in the ballgame. Since we were at Ed Smith Stadium we had our entire roster on site, so to me and the other back ups it surely felt like a long shot. 

We found ourselves playing from behind again in the 7th inning, despite racking up a bunch of hits, as the Pirates were up 8-2. González had explained to me a few innings earlier that I was going to go in for Ramon Urías at third base and if he did not get his fourth at bat by the 7th inning, he was going to call it a day. Luckily for me, his spot did not make it to the plate in the 7th and I was due up second in the 8th inning. I was going to get my at bat. 

The top of the 8th inning was over and I jogged in from 3rd base to prepare to face Duane Underwood Jr., a hard throwing right hander with 78 career Big League appearances with the Pirates and Cubs. After Martin punched out to start the inning, I began to walk towards home plate. I thought about the day I was told that I was going to get released. I thought about how hard it was to step into the box that day compared to the thrill of a lifetime that was stepping into the box in this moment. Talk about an emotional roller coaster of a few weeks, eh? 

I flailed the bat with both hands over my head and back to stretch my shoulders, then I grabbed some dirt from the batter’s box to dry the sweat from my hands and gripped my tar-covered Dove Tail bat. ‘Now batting for your Baltimore Orioles, third baseman, number 86, Willy Yahn.’ I’ve been waiting for that for a while. Some of the Orioles faithful, who must have gone to a lot of Minor League regular season games, recognized my name and started to cheer. 

Underwood Jr. started me off with two fastballs, one high and one away, both out of the strike zone. I felt like I was seeing it well. I took a borderline 2-0 fastball for a strike on the outside corner, followed by another fastball for a ball to make it a 3-1 count. I was hunting a fastball without question. He was living up and away with his fastball to that point, so I was looking for something middle-away while making sure I saw it down so as to not chase any high cheese. 

The 3-1 offering was a 96-mph fastball on the black of the outside corner. I saw it pretty deep into the zone while I released my hands and buried my head into the contact point. It jumped off the barrel and shot towards the right field corner and upon contact, I thought it was going to slice foul. I was able to stay through it well, giving the ball enough backspin to keep it just inside the right field line. The small crowd got loud for a moment and I glided into second with a stand up double. I had an extra base hit in a Big League Spring Training game.

I remember thinking to myself that no matter what transpired after that moment, I had that, I did that. My impending demise as an Oriole was hanging over me like a storm cloud for the last two weeks, but I whipped out my metaphorical umbrella to block it all out. The crap that I was dealing with was not going to take away from the opportunity I had at that moment and that is why I succeeded. 

With two outs in the bottom of the 9th, I found myself at the plate again with another opportunity to get a Big League Spring Training knock. The crowd of Minor League fans in attendance that day started going absolutely insane for me. For me? I thought it was awesome, but I was also hilariously in shock. The crowd definitely had been far from rowdy throughout the day to say the least. But a 5-year Minor League journeyman with a double to his name on the day, perhaps, was what riled them up? Perhaps, inspired them? Maybe the beer guy blessed the folks with one more round of pounders before they closed up shop? All I know is they were fired up, and in all my clutchness I smacked a hard one hopper right back to the pitcher on the first pitch. He easily flipped it over to the first baseman, while I ran like hell as if I wasn’t thrown out by 30 feet. 

I returned to the dugout where the players and coaches made many jokes about how many of my family members were in town for that game based on all the crowd noise. I assured them that as far as I knew, no one I knew or invited was in attendance. They all laughed and everyone slowly filed out of the dugout. I was one of the last guys to head for the showers after collecting all my things.

“Hey Yahn,” a voice bellowed from behind me. I turned around and it was Orioles manager Brandon Hyde.

“Hey Skip, what’s up?”

“Was that all your cousins or your frat brothers or something in the stands or what?” He said jokingly. “They were getting loud for you today!”

“I swear I didn’t know any of those people yelling,” I said with a shrug and a grin. 

“That was awesome, man. I hung onto this for you, I thought you would want it.” Hyde proceeded to hand me the ball that was the one I hit for a double with a description of the knock and his John Hancock. 

“Wow, I appreciate the hell out of this! Thank you!” We continued to chat as we walked across the field towards the clubhouse beyond the right field wall. A slew of reporters were waiting to talk to Hyde near the clubhouse as he and I emerged from the field. 

“You know what? Yahn is going to take care of postgame with you guys, I got other stuff to do,” Hyde said to the reporters as he chuckled and motioned towards opening the door. Some of the reporters thought it was funny and others looked incredibly confused, obviously not picking up the joke. Either way, they were all staring at me waiting for me to say something. 

“Uh, I think he’s kidding,” I nervously said to the group.

“Haha, I’m kidding Yahn, get the hell outta here,” he said while laughing. I had a feeling he was kidding, but I was rattled there for a second. 

My last game as an Oriole was against the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin. My guy Pete Foley and his wife were in town and were able to make it to see the game. Truth be told, I was excited that I was going to see a familiar face from home in the stands for one of the Big League Spring Training games. We took a picture after the game as he sported the infamous “Willy Who??” Housatonic Baseball shirt and caught up quick before I had to hit the showers. You just never know who is going to be there to see the end of something important. But Pete Foley saw my last game ever as an Oriole.

  I had said hello once, maybe twice, to Trey Mancini over the course of the spring in passing, but had not had a conversation with him yet. I had been wanting to tell him about a coach from our amateur days that we both knew well. I walked out of the locker room to head out to the field and held the door for the person behind me, who ended up being Mancini.

“Hey Trey, Willy Yahn, pleasure to officially meet you, man.”

“What’s up Willy, nice to meet you too,” he said while we shook hands.

“I’ve been meaning to introduce myself and tell you about a coach we both used to play for.”

“Oh yeah, who’s that?”

“Daryl Morhardt, you remember him?”

“You know Daryl??” He asked enthusiastically. 

“Yeah! He coached my last two seasons of high school, he used to talk about coaching you for the Holyoke Blue Sox.”

“Wow that’s funny man, I remember him well. Holyoke was a very interesting place, but I liked playing for him!” We laughed and talked a little more before the game. I already knew a lot of guys on the roster from playing with them at one level or another. But having guys like Mancini, Odor, Chirinos, among others, as teammates even just for a few days was a really cool and unforgettable experience. 

The 6th inning concluded and we were down to the Blue Jays 2-1. González began making his rounds to the back up players. He told me if Urías got on base that I was going to pinch run for him and then play third base the last three innings. With one out in the 7th, Urías slapped a liner out to center field for a base hit and when the play was dead I immediately jumped out of the dugout to replace him at first. I got to second on a wild pitch but a strike out and a ground out ended our threat. 

In the bottom of the 7th, Chris Ellis entered the game to pitch for us. He induced a fly out, hit a batter who then stole second, and struck out a Blue Jay to get to two outs. Right handed hitting Rainer Nunez stepped up to the plate. With an 0-1 count, he hit a hard chopper down the third base line. I laid out completely to get my glove to it, jumped to my feet and threw it as fast as I could in the direction of first base. I just missed pelting the runner on second going towards third in head, but after four hops across the diamond it made it to Tyler Nevin to get Nunez for the final out of the inning. It was one of the better plays I had made at third base in a long time.

Again, I found myself on deck with two outs in the bottom of the 9th. Jordan Romano was on the mound for the Jays facing Martin. With two strikes, Martin barreled up a base hit on one of Romano’s filthy sliders that he left a little up in the zone. One last chance for me to do something. 

Romano when he pitches out of the stretch slowly and uniquely reaches his set position. Then he will usually come set for a split second and boom, leg kick and 97-mph coming in hot. His first pitch fastball to me was a ball or two above the zone, but I took an absolute daddy hack. Timing wise I was on it, but I fouled it straight back. The second pitch was a high 96-mph fastball that I took for a ball. With a 1-1 count he came back with another fastball high and away but it caught the top of the zone for a called strike. With two strikes he snapped off a nasty slider just out of the zone low and away, but I reached for it and punched out to end the ball game. The next morning the Orioles terminated my contract and I drove straight home to Connecticut.

***

So, is it over? Professionally, it might be. I would say that there is still a glimmer of hope that the phone might ring and I get one more whack at it in affiliated ball. But the odds certainly are not in my favor. So… now what?

I recently read the book “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield after it was recommended to me by my Uncle Charlie. The sub-caption is “Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles”. What an amazing read. At least for me, the book made me check myself. From my daily habits to my self-talk, from my procrastination tendencies to my core values and what it means to be a professional in more ways than just on the ball field. The book has a plethora of fascinating and thought-stirring quotes.

“A professional reinvents himself… the professional does not permit himself to become hidebound by one incarnation, however comfortable or successful. Like a transmigrating soul, he shucks his outworn body and dons a new one. He continues his journey.” – Steven Pressfield.

I want to be a successful baseball writer and broadcaster. This is the early beginnings of formulating this vision, the view of which is very telescopic and I am working to find the first official steps towards this new path. I want to be a part of the Baseball Writers Association of America (B.B.W.A.A.), the group of talented sports writers who vote on who will be immortalized as a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Having been a former player who got as close as you can to the Big League dream, I believe I would bring a unique, fun and calculated brand of writing to the fans of baseball. 

“It’s one thing to study war and another to live the warrior’s life.” – Telamon of Arcadia, Mercenary of the 5th Century B.C. (Via Pressfield in ‘The War of Art’) 

My five years in the trenches with and against some of the best young ball players in the world will contribute to my analysis of individual games and the game of baseball as a whole. It also has allowed me to be extremely connected throughout the baseball world, including lifelong connections with players, coaches, front office staff and members of the media. Broadcasting is something I like and I would enjoy being able to do that as well, but writing is a true passion of mine that I know I will do for the rest of my life.

“Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?” – Steven Pressfield.

Baseball and writing. Playing baseball alone all the time would stink, but I could find an auto-feeder pitching machine and take batting practice on a field and write everyday for the rest of my life and be happy as a clam. If you know me at all, you know that I will be playing baseball until I am physically unable in some way, shape or form. Currently, I am just starting seasons with three different teams in Connecticut. The Tritown Trojans in the Tristate League, M&T People’s Bank out of the Greater Hartford Baseball League, and the Milford Monsters out of the Nutmeg State Baseball League. Oh yeah, I’ll be getting my reps this summer. 

The beginning of a new path is hard, bittersweet, and can feel confusing. But it feels great to realize these new goals after a lot of thought and conversation with those close to me. I feel like a train that has returned to the tracks. If it really is the end for me in affiliated baseball, I am proud of myself for what I did and I am looking forward to a new chapter in my life. I am also thankful to everyone for supporting me in my career and in life to this point, as well as to my teammates at every level who were grinding right next to me. It takes a village, I would not have come nearly this far on my own. 

“Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.” – Steven Pressfield.

We played back-to-back games on Thursday and Friday (7/16 & 7/17) following the Gator business trip to Maine. Our first game with our brand-spanking-new barrels was against the Arch2 Indians in Rocky Hill. I had a pair of custom bats that were being shipped separately, with Gator green DTB (Dove Tail Bats) as well as the model and my name in green on the barrel with a natural finish. For the Arch2 game I used a Matte Black Gator 243 model bat that we brought back with the team shipment. First at-bat, she did the job, connecting on a solo dinger to left-center to get us out to an early 1-0 lead with two outs in the 1st inning. Will Perotti followed up the next inning with a solo shot of his own, as the Gators played a clean game and went on to win 6-2. Miles pitched another gem, tossing six innings while fanning eight batters and allowing one earned run. Zack Larson relieved Scribby in the 7th and struck out the final batter to seal the Gator victory. 

The following day we were back at Muzzy Field under the lights, as former UConn righty and California-turned-Connecticut native Jeff Kersten made his Gator debut against the Bristol Knights. This would be our first of a handful of times in 2020 that we would face the crafty lefty Chris McGrath for Bristol. Kersten and McGrath held it scoreless through five innings. Finally in the 6th we got on the board, when Will drove me in with a liner up the middle after I singled and stole second. After Kersten went six innings and struck out seven in his debugt, Jacob Shpur came in for the save. Big Shpur struck out one batter and got some help from our backstop Landon Gardella, who threw out a runner attempting to steal and then caught a foul pop up to secure a 1-0 victory. The Gators were now 8-2 on the season. 

Back on June 25th, the day of our first game at Dunkin’ Donuts Park, a man approached me after the contest and asked if I wanted to play for his team in the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League (GHTBL). The GHTBL was established in 1929 and is one of the oldest baseball leagues in the U.S. That man turned out to be Tom Abbruzzese, the manager of the People’s United Bank team out of Wethersfield. Tom and I stayed in contact and I was also in touch with Justin Morhardt, former Atlanta Braves minor leaguer and two-way player for People’s United Bank. I hashed out dates that I could work around Gator games and sent them to Tom. On July 21, Lindsey made the trek over with me to Riverfront Park in Glastonbury as I made my Banker debut. 

I did not make a glowing first impression with the bat, as I went 0 for 4. But Justin started that game on the mound and I remember converting on about a dozen plays at shortstop en route to a close victory over Rainbow Graphics out of Manchester. I quickly began to enjoy playing for People’s Bank for a few reasons. For starters, I always find it fun getting to know a new group of teammates and showing proving that no matter who I played for I wanted to win badly and that I had my eye on two league rings that summer. 

Second, I was a touch more anonymous in the GHTBL, or at least I felt like that was the case (correct me if I’m wrong people). But with the Gators everyone generally knew ‘that’s Willy’s team that he made’, I would do the coaches meetings a lot of games, I stuck out like a sore thumb. But with People’s Bank I could sneak into our dugout with a plain t-shirt and the team hat that resembled that of the Philadelphia Phillies, and I could surprise the opponent at least for my first at-bat from the leadoff spot. I say that because after my first game as a Banker, many of my first at-bats I received fastballs that caught a lot of plate early in the count, as pitchers were trying to establish their fastball early in the game to the leadoff hitter. AB number one would go: knock, swipe second base, then third, another Banker drives me in for an early lead. It was at this point I felt like teams thought “oooooh it’s that long hair schmuck from UConn who belly flops everywhere” and they remember for the next at-bat. 

On the Gator side of things, we had our third matchup against the Terryville Blacksox the day after making my Banker debut. The final time we would meet them in the regular season did not go our way, as the bats stayed quiet in a 5-1 loss. It was a hard fought battle, but the Blacksox jumped out to a lead early by way of the longball and Kody Kerski shut us down. Our lack of offense carried over into our matchup on Friday night against Elmer’s Angels back at Muzzy. We scored a lone run early, when Landon Gardella drove me in with an RBI single after I reached with a knock and stole second, but that was our only run of the ballgame. Luckily for us, we had former Bridgeport Bluefish Adam Piechowski in stellar form that night. “Pie” went the distance for the complete game shutout with 13 punchouts while allowing just one hit. 

As the final week of July was upon us, we were slated for a Monday night double header at Muzzy Field against the Bristol Knights and the Southington Aftershock. It proved to be one of the more memorable nights of the Gator season.

Scribby got the start for us that night and pitched well. Through six innings he had struck out nine Bristol batters while the Knights scattering six hits for two runs on only one earned run. But our offensive woes continued as we entered the top of the 7th down 2-0. Then came some “Muzzy Magic”, which always reaches its height at the end of July and beginning of August. 

Danny McCarty, a Trojan veteran and consistent hitter in the order for us all season, started the rally with a big leadoff double and was pinch-ran for by Brad Ellis. After an out, CJ Brito laced a double of his own and brought us within a run. Team strength coach, Nicky Yousefzadeh, worked a walk after a long at-bat and Matt Perotti wore one like a sweater to load the bases. Austin Patenaude tied the game with a sac-fly to center field with two strikes, and Caleb Shpur stepped up with two outs with runners at second and third with a chance to drive in two runs. After he worked the at-bat to a 3-2 count, Young Shpur fisted an inside fastball out to left-field for a clutch two RBI single to give us a 4-2 lead. I stepped up next and Caleb stole second on the first pitch before I got one way off the end of the bat but nestled a looper into left to score Caleb and make it a 5-2 ballgame. Scribby would shut it down in the bottom of the 7th to secure the W in Game 1 of our Double Header in dramatic fashion. 

We had the Aftershock next and first-pitch was around 8:30 after the wild finish to the Knights game. Our offense kept the momentum going from the end of Game 1, as all three of our first hitters of the ball game scored. Austin reached on a walk, as did Caleb on an error, followed by a single of my own. Will Perotti laced a two-RBI single to plate Austin and Caleb, then Danny McCarty drove a fly ball deep to center to send me home for a sac-fly.

Bobby added on to his list of quality starts for the Gator Gang. “Chat” tossed a complete game, fanned 11 batters without a walk and surrendered two runs. After getting three quick runs in the first, the bats went quiet again. We wanted to create some insurance and even try to run up the score after such a hot start. However, sometimes we had a recurring tendency, one I have seen in great teams that I have played with. The tendency to be complacent with an early lead and rarely putting together a full game offensively. We were able to secure the victory though, 3-2, capping off an incredibly unique double header. We were victorious in both contests while only scoring in two back-to-back innings, the 7th inning of Game 1 and the 1st inning of Game 2. Just another crazy night at Muzzy Field.

The Gators began to limp towards the regular season finish line, starting the next day after our late night at Muzzy. We had to make the trek to East Hampton High School to play the Fat Orange Cat Brewers, about an hour and forty minutes from the Gator Offices back in Lakeville. Down early, we made a comeback and the game was tied 4-4 after five frames. Then the wheels came off in the 6th as the Brewers hung seven runs on us before I came in for a mop up roll on the mound as we were out of arms. The game would finish 11-4, making the already long ride home feel even longer. 

The first week in August was the final week of the regular season and we had three games to improve our 9-3 (.750%) record, trailing only the Blacksox (12-2, .857%) in winning percentage in the whole league. Monday night, we were on the road against the Glastonbury Pirates and another Husky made an impromptu Gator appearance. Garret Coe, from Morris and current UConn lefthander, made the start for us that day. He had participated in a few scrimmages in May and June and I texted him the night before to see if he wanted the ball. Garret was lights out, going the distance while punching out 16 Glastonbury batters and scattering five hits. The Gator bats were as cold as ice, however, and we couldn’t manage to manufacture one run to avoid extra innings. Their pitcher was throwing all sorts of slow junk, I recall reaching at pitches in my at-bats that game just out of the zone resulting in fairly deep but harmless fly outs. 

To the disdain of everyone on the field, the umpires called the game a 0-0 tie after eight innings due to darkness as we were at a field without lights that evening. It felt worse than a loss. Tying is just gross, especially in baseball. The bad energy rolled into our next game, a loss to Elmer’s Angels 3-2. I really do not want to touch on this game at all, but after this one was the most angry I was all season by far. I was mad at myself for trying to swing out of my shoes too much and popping up a lot of my at-bats the last few games, a selfish approach that may have rubbed off on a few guys causing our slump. I was also mad because I felt like I was struggling to get my guys fired up for our games of late. We were getting away from our game, the way we played when we were beating the top teams and demolishing other teams, which was racking up the knocks and being really aggressive on the base paths. 

We got back on track Friday night in a rematch against the Aftershock, as we won the season finale 7-1. Piechowski got the W and pitched the five innings he needed to qualify to pitch in the postseason, striking out five in the process while allowing only one hit. Big Shpur closed the door with two innings and two punchouts allowing one earned run to lock up our 10th win of the season. Everyone contributed a little bit on offense that night which was encouraging headed into the postseason. 

It was about to be playoff time for the GHTBL as well, as I needed to get into one more regular season game to qualify myself for the playoffs with People United Bank. We were playing the East Hartford Jets at Wethersfield High School after I had finally received my custom Dove Tail Bat in the mail earlier in the day. It had a natural finish with the DTB and Willy Yahn in Gator green. She was beautiful. I wanted to use her that day because she was fresh out of the box in which it was shipped. I was the lead off hitter and the first pitch of the bottom of the first with the new weapon, I smashed a line drive into center for a single. A good sign for the new bat headed into the playoffs. Then a new pitcher came in for the Jets in the 3rd innings, throwing pretty hard from a funky angle. I learned after the game that it was Lief Bigelow, former UConn sidearmer who transferred to University of Maine. I faced off against him my second at bat, first pitch was a hard runner fastball on the corner inside. I took a hack at it and the barrel of my brand new bat explodes off the handle. I watched the beautiful green label saucer away in disgust. My running so fast in anger and the infielders being distracted by a flying wooden knife allowed me to reach on an infield single. But at what cost, folks? I jokingly called out to Lief (at this point was still trying to remember who he was) saying he owed me a new Dove Tail. 

I finished the game with three knocks and three swiped bags, the Bankers came out on top 4-2. We were able to win all five regular season games for which I made the trip, as we had a pretty solid team. About the same average age as the Gators, with a lot of solid hitters throughout the line up and a few college pitchers who knew what they were doing. Justin Morhardt contributed highly on both sides of the ball. On top of hitting some bombs out of the clean-up spot, he is a competitive pitcher who induces a lot of ground balls, which as a shortstop makes him a guy that is fun to play behind. People’s United Bank finished 6-6 as we would face off against the GHTBL powerhouse the Vernon Orioles. 

The Gator Gang finished the season at 10-4-1 and the #3 seed in the CTL playoff picture. We were matched up against the #6 seed Bristol Knights for August 11th at Riverfront Park.

It should not have taken as long as it did, but the Gator franchise was just 26 days old when we acquired our first victory of 2020 against the New Britain Hurricanes. I failed to give any love to my pitchers regarding our first W. Former Plymouth Panther Bobby Chatfield earned the win, going five innings striking out two while only surrendering a hit and a run. Zack Larson put a bow on the 11-1 victory, tossing two scoreless innings to close it out. We had a quick turnaround for the following contest, however, as we suited up the next day to take on the Wethersfield Dodgers at Muzzy Field. 

It was a really special night personally, as it was my first time returning to Muzzy Field since playing with the Bristol Blues in the 2015 Future League Championship Series. I could talk about that three-game series and that Blues team all day. From the 1-0 victory in Game 2 as Domonic LoBrutto twirled an absolute gem, to our improbable comeback late in Game 3 to force extra innings in front of an absolutely packed house in Bristol, Muzzy became one of my favorite parks that year. 

Beyond the epic series, I was very lucky to join a team full of awesome dudes. The Blues invited me to the team with only one month remaining after I had missed the playoffs with the Newark Pilots in the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League. If you asked anyone from that Blue’s locker room who their favorite and most entertaining teammate was, we would all answer the same: Ryan Costello. 

I walked into that locker room only knowing a fellow husky, Griffin Garabedian, and sort of knowing Tim Cate as he was an incoming freshman to UConn. I played a season of TCB with Mike Nocera so it was good to see him as well, but otherwise that was it. I was just finishing up my freshman year, and it is not easy to walk into a 1st place locker room and prove to these guys that I could help them right away. I felt a little anxious. I was shown to my locker, to the right of Tim’s, which was also to the left of Ryan’s spot. 

“Oh jeez not another UConn guy, don’t we have enough!” After Ryan said something to the effect of that, as he would often, he had a big smile on his face, a laugh to follow and we introduced ourselves. Right away that eased my stress and I felt accepted quickly. 

Cozzy was his usual nickname, others simplified it down to just Coz. He played at Central Connecticut, and not only was he one of the best players on the Blues but he wore his love and passion for the game on his sleeve. Coz approached the game the same way he lived his life: with pure joy, raw intensity and a hunger to win and improve. I learned a lot from him about the importance of being a teammate that positively affects the locker room environment and what good that can do for a ball club. Baseball is hard as hell. The game needs guys like Coz to lighten the mood in the locker room and make the days you go 0 for 4 not weigh so heavily on your mind. 

Tragically, we lost Coz in November of 2019 to a rare heart condition while he was overseas for the Australian Baseball League. I won’t soon forget the utter shock and pain from learning of his passing. 

I tell this anecdote in remembrance of Coz as well as a thank you to him. For being the teammate and person he was, for always having a big smile on his face, and for competing everyday like it was his last. I will do the same everyday I play. Coz was certainly in my thoughts that night when I returned to Muzzy with the Gators for the first time since ‘15.

We got our second win of the season against the Wethersfield Dodgers, by the score of 3-1. Consensus in the parking lot post-game was that the Gator Gang would have liked to score more runs against that team but otherwise we played a solid game, led by Miles Scribner’s pitching performance. The Tritown Trojan regular went the distance and would have secured the shutout if not for me trying to be a hero deep in the six-hole at shortstop. With a runner on second base, I used a pop-up slide to my backhand and launched the ball as hard as I could from the edge of the outfield grass with two outs in the top of the last inning. I let it eat, but the release point was a tad early. Man, did I sail that throw, I should have just held it anyway as an out was unlikely. I remember joking with some of the guys post-game that the ball may have cleared Bristol and landed over in Farmington, that’s how far it flew out of Muzzy Field. I told Scribby and his dad I owed him a steak for blowing his shutout. I still got you Scrib!

After two wins in two days, the Gators had to wait until Sunday, July 12, to get back to action in a big matchup. The rematch from our first game at the Dunk’, against the Terryville Blacksox. Jacob Shpur, a Springfield College hurler and older brother to Caleb, got the ball for us that day. He was a great arm for us all summer, a crafty right-hander who pitches smart and fills up the zone. That’s what he did that Sunday against a Blacksox lineup with a lot of juice top to bottom. He pitched out of a big jam with runners on 1st and 3rd, one out in the 2nd innings, getting a strikeout and inducing a 5-3 putout to Caleb. Big Shpur punched out a pair of batters that day, while scattering seven hits and three earned runs through 5+ innings. 

The Gators did damage in the 5th, getting things started with a leadoff triple by our 2nd baseman and Bowdoin Polar Bear CJ Brito. After a few walks, an Austin Patenaude knock, and an eventful two-strike RBI groundout on my part, we put three on the board as the game was tied after five frames. 

Scribby got the ball in the middle of the 6th in relief of Jacob after Andrew Hinkley hit a bomb to dead center. Hink is a solid two way player who I played against while he was at Central Connecticut and was a soon-to-be teammate of mine on another adult league team I would play for later in the year. One of the many solid players on Terryville.

There was a lot of chirping coming out of the Blacksox dugout, mostly because of the many times Scribby faced those guys during his time with the Trojans in the TriState League. All I said to him when he came in with a runner on first and no outs was to roll a double-play ball. I glove-tapped him on the back and walked back to shortstop. Third pitch of the at-bat, boom, 6-4-3 double play. Scribby got the last guy to ground out and I could tell from the start of his outing he was locked in. He was used to a starting roll and pitching deep into games, so we just needed to get one run and he would close it out for us. 

A CTL regulation ballgame is seven innings, and to our disdain it took more than seven to come to a conclusion as it remained deadlocked at three. At long last in the top of the 9th, the hero would be our guy “Stick and a Bagel” (10) Coleby Bunnell who provided the clutch game winning knock, driving home Landon after his big double to start the inning. Scribby closed it out in the 9th, and we secured our biggest victory of the season so far. We had the ‘Sox on the schedule one more time, and the whole league soon learned that someone would have to beat those guys late in the postseason if they wanted the 2020 CTL crown. But in the moment, that win on a picturesque summer Sunday and improving the Gators to 3-1 on the season felt phenomenal. 

That whole weekend I had started binge watching the Ken Burns Baseball documentary and doing hours of baseball research online. This was in preparation for a Summer School class I signed up to teach at the Marvelwood School in Kent where my Mom works. Yeah, I said teach. Crazy, eh? From July 13th-17th I would be making my best effort to jam-pack the most significant parts of baseball history, as I viewed it, into just 5 two-hour lecture sessions. A truly impossible task that I attempted to the best of my ability.

The Gators could only enjoy our victory over Terryville for the night. Right after my first day of teaching the History of Baseball, we prepared for a Monday night rematch way over in Wethersfield against the Dodgers. UConn and Cali native Jeff Kersten came to throw a flat-ground bullpen while seeing what all the Gator Gang buzz was about in our process of recruiting him to the team.

As I mentioned earlier, I felt like we had shortchanged ourselves offensively against those guys in our first matchup. Credit to their starter in that first game at Muzzy, but we left a lot of runners on base. This time around we cashed in, using a ten-run 3rd inning to cruise to a 13-0 final score in four innings. Sure enough, Jeff Kersten was interested in joining our already talented squad.

The next day, after a few days of planning, Coleby Bunnell, Caleb Shpur and myself left before dawn that Tuesday morning for a business trip up north… way north.

I had done some research and made some phone calls in the days prior with Dove Tail Bats up in Shirley, Maine. I had received many custom bats from them the last two seasons, dating back to the days playing with the Aberdeen Ironbirds. They had a team deal for a dozen high-quality Rock Maple bats of multiple models with custom Great Falls Gators labels. 

Caleb and I rendezvoused at Housy just after 4 a.m., followed by picking up Coleby in the middle of Litchfield, and we were off. I had to get to my sister Ellie’s house in Portland with enough time to set up and present my two hour lecture for my History of Baseball class before going further north. It all sounds a lot more hectic than it felt in the moment, merely a matter of getting the driving out of the way. 

After my class was over, we took off for Dove Tail Bats Headquarters in Shirley, about two and a half hours north of Portland. About an hour into that leg of our journey, we got off the main highway and it was all backcountry state routes the rest of the way. The boys were officially out there in Upstate Maine. 

At long last, around 2 p.m. we arrived. Theresa Lancisi, co-founder of Dove Tail with her husband Paul, greeted us and helped us through the process of ordering our team bats. I recalled in conversation with Theresa the time I met her husband in Spring Training as he was marketing his bats at Orioles camp in Sarasota. He saw that I already had a Dove Tail of my own and gave me two free shirts which I greatly appreciated. He was not at the warehouse the day we came, although Theresa was just as generous during our visit, offering a free shirt as we made our purchases. Due to Covid-19 protocols, we were able to get a limited look at the facility in the back where they made the bats, then we left for an hour while our weapons were produced. 

We drove up the road into Greenville, Maine. We hopped out of the car in a parking lot in the middle of town and there was mighty Moosehead Lake. I had only heard my father babble about this lake as his Fahmington, Maine accent subtly attempted a comeback, but never knew anything about this mystery place to which he referred. Until that day with my fellow young Gators, and even on a cloudy day it was beautiful. 

We returned for our bats after getting enough of Moosehead Lake’s glory. The boys and I loaded up the lumber, got some grub and headed back for Portland. We had to pull over shortly into the trip south to open the fresh box of bats and experience them in all their beauty. We felt out the bat models that we wanted briefly before officially putting in the order, so this was our first touch of the official Gator bats. They were magnificent. 

Us Gators were on the same page when we got back to Portland. We asked Ellie where the nearest field was and if she wanted to come take some swings with us. There we were, walking down the street of Portland, Maine with a dozen fresh Dove Tails, a bucket of 80 baseballs and our gloves going to get our Gator reps in. Ellie was out there flagging down fly balls like a champ while a hobo beyond the outfield fence mistook me for a woman until I had my chance to swing a bat. Despite a damp field and no L-screen, those Gator reps were truly unforgettable. We celebrated by ordering way too much fried chicken that took way too long to make anyways, had a few cold ones and conked out after our long day. 

It had been quite a ride the last few days. From Sunday morning when we were preparing for our huge win over Terryville, to having brunch outside on a sunny Wednesday morning at Miss Portland Diner after my third class teaching the History of Baseball, we had accomplished quite a lot in 72 hours. Coleby, Caleb and I made the trek back that afternoon as the Gators would return to action the following day against the Arch 2 Indians.

My first time playing at Dunkin’ Donuts Park, the home of the Hartford Yardgoats, was May 18th, 2017 with UConn. It was a beautiful Friday night in Connecticut as the Huskies prepared for game one of our final regular-season series of the spring against East Carolina. I remember that night like it was yesterday for many reasons. For starters, Hook C baseball fans came out in droves and the energy was electric. Hartford was buzzing. That park would be referred to by our teammates as “The House that Frenchy Built” when our senior catcher, Alex Leferve, hit his first career Home Run. That was easily one of the most electric moments of the season. Tim Cate the Robot went out there and effortlessly twirled a complete game shutout, one of the best games I ever saw out of him during the two years I played with him in Storrs. Finally, on a personal note, it was the day I collected my 200th career knock with UConn across my chest. Needless to say, my first time at the Dunk was one of the more special days of my baseball career to that point. 

It took me just over two years to earn another chance to play at that gorgeous ballpark. The day was June 19th, 2019, one day after I had the honor of representing the Frederick Keys in the Carolina League All-Star game. The day before the All-Star Game, I was informed that I was getting called up to Double-A and headed to Hartford. I rode with my parents on the 19th from Maryland to Hartford after staying up until 3 AM packing and preparing to move out of my host family’s house, the Witt’s. That was a sad moment but wee all knew only good things were to come. 

At long last, I was allowed to enter the bowels of the ballpark, after seeing just the playing surface and the dugouts of Dunkin’ Donuts Park back in ‘17. I’ll tell you what, they were not messing around when they made that facility. Their indoor hitting area was impressive. It had two massive hitting tunnels and giant glass windows separating reporters and scouts from hitters while still allowing a close look. The guest locker room was massive, with a few tables and couches on which to play cards, eat, lounge, etc. I was so fired up when I saw a PS4 in the locker room that I’m having trouble recalling if there was one or two consoles in there. Either way some of my new teammates were ripping the video game FIFA before batting practice. The locker room kitchen had a Keurig with all the Dunkin’ K-cups we could drink. I got settled into a locker and said hi to the players and coaches I knew while introducing myself to those I did not. Then, our manager Buck Britton posted that night’s line-up. There was YAHN, penciled in the six-hole. My Double-A debut was going to happen in front of friends and family in the heart of my home state.

I do not remember much from running out there for the bottom of the first. I was so hyper-focused on making sure I was successful in my first Double-A fielding chance, the packed ballpark might as well have been empty. The top of the second came along and the six-spot was due up. My adrenaline was pumping hard and I tried my best to slow myself down. ‘Don’t think, just take a hack at the first good one you see’, I thought to myself. After I took a borderline first-pitch strike, I got a fastball up and in but inside the strike zone, and I took my first Double-A hack. I kept my hands in and got the barrel to the ball and turned on that puppy. I did not think I got it as well as I did off the bat, and to this day no one really knows whether or not that ball was a Home Run or just a double or even a foul ball. The Yardgoat’s manager came out to argue it was a foul ball and after the fact, our skipper, Buck, told me “I would have gotten tossed if they called that foul!” 

As the argument continued, I took a chance to remove the in-game blinders and I started looking into the crowd. I found my parents, many friends from the Northwest Corner and UConn among others. The joy I felt was overwhelming as I tried my best to act like I had been there before, Lord knows I hadn’t. I was excited to record my first extra-base hit and first RBI in Double-A, but to be able to do it in Hartford with so many people I knew and loved in attendance made it feel like a dream. It was another moment at that ballpark I would remember forever. The Baysox would play six total games at Dunkin’ Donuts Park that summer, of which I made the start in three of those contests. 

I know, I know, I may have covered some of this before. But all of that combined with the fact that the first game in Great Falls Gator’s history was going to be at that beautiful ballpark felt like another dream. A more confusing one, with the roller coaster of emotions that 2020 provided, yet an exciting start for a franchise that did not exist just over two weeks prior. It was June 25, 2020. I rolled up with Coach Stew and Prez Shawn bumping “We Will Rock You” by Queen on full blast. We shlepped the team equipment to the dugout and there we were, on the field, back in that beautiful cathedral for Connecticut baseball. 

Once I put all the equipment down, I laid down and started doing ‘snow angels’ in the grass in shallow right field. I needed it. Just over a year after making my Double-A debut, after the pandemic sent us packing from Spring Training and canceled Minor League Baseball in 2020, just being there for a game felt like therapy. Once I had finally written a line-up and warmed up, it was time to face-off against a really high quality opponent for this level of baseball, the Terryville Blacksox. 

The Blacksox combined with another team out of Waterbury to create a talented ball club, especially from a pitching standpoint. Their staff rolled out four pitchers and only one of them, a softer throwing lefty, did not touch 90 MPH on the radar gun that day. 

The big Gator moment that day came from the bat of Caleb Shpur. Caleb is now a sophomore at Endicott College who had earned some playing time for the Gulls his freshman spring. He produced one of the more legendary moments of the entire season, crushing a solo shot in the Dunkin’ left-field bleachers for the first ding-dong in Gator franchise history.

That was all she wrote that day for the Gators, as we surrendered three runs in the first and couldn’t overcome the deficit. Kody Kerski, former Minor Leaguer for the Seattle Mariners, came in for the close sitting 91 and got up to 93 a few times. We could do nothing but tip our caps to the Blacksox that day, the better team won. I didn’t even get a freakin’ hit, sad! But the Gators were just getting started. I knew our team was going to make the adjustments we needed to have a great chance of beating those guys on July 12 when we played again.

Despite the hunger every Gator had to play again, we had to wait for a bad spell of rain to pass. Our second and third scheduled games were both postponed. It would not be until July 6th when we finally were able to get back onto the field in New Britain against the NB Hurricanes. 

Just the day before, I had completely overcooked my body in the form of hiking and lack of sleep. Lindsey and I celebrated our one-year anniversary of dating on July 4th while in Tamworth, New Hampshire with my family. On the 5th, Lindsey and I decided we were going to make our first trip up the mighty Mount Chocorua, located in the famous White Mountains of New Hampshire and visible from the house our family has owned since 1906. The legendary mountain is 3,480 feet in elevation and over a 10-mile hike round trip. Lindsey and I crushed it, although, I wouldn’t say we properly prepared ourselves for the beating that day. We did not bring enough food and ran out of water just after reaching the beautiful summit. We risked contracting Giardia for a sip of some fresh, ice-cold water out of a creek during our trip back down the mountain (sorry if that’s TMI, but we did not get sick thank God!). 

The following morning we limped to the car and hightailed it home to be able to make it back for the game. When we were an hour from the field, fatigue was really hitting me like a ton of bricks. I knew I just needed a nap and I would feel fine but that was not an option. We stopped at Dunkin’ and I got a large iced coffee with a turbo shot. Here’s the thing: when you need to study, write a paper, or something of that nature, a turbo shot is great. When your body is already reeling and all you need is water and electrolytes, a turbo shot is most definitely not great. 

When I got to the field mentally I was all there, but physically I was dead as a doornail. I wrote up the line-up, went out to throw, and only got about five throws in before I had to go do the pregame coaches meeting. Not the most ideal of warm-ups the day after a 10-mile hike, but it would have to do for now. 

At long last, I recorded my first career Gator knock in the top of the first inning. With Austin Patenaude reaching before me with a hit-by-pitch, we had runners on first and second. Landon Gardella stepped up and punched one into the left-center. Austin was able to score easily while I attempted to go from first to third right in the left-fielder’s face as he fielded the ball to his forehand side. I knew it would be a close play at third and without thinking, executed one of the most aggressive, Pete Rose-esque belly flop slides in my own career at any level. If I was thinking, I wouldn’t have thought to do that considering how my body felt that day. The only thing I had on my mind was getting to third base as quickly and aggressively as possible to dislodge the ball or distract the third baseman from securing the throw and applying a tag. Sure enough, the ball went off the end of the third baseman’s glove and went to the fence, but not far enough where I could not score. I came up to a knee on third base, feeling like someone threw a brick at my chest and gave me two dead legs. Honestly, the excitement of my first belly flop of 2020 was balancing out the pain and fatigue. 

Luckily the Gators bats stayed hot all night, as we jumped out to an 11-1 lead by the end of the 5th. Before I ended up yacking or something embarrassing like that from being gassed, I pulled myself from the game and let some guys who hadn’t started get in there to get an at-bat or two. The last 48 hours at that point had been just crazy. From spending time in upstate New Hampshire with my family and girlfriend of one year to my first time climbing Chocorua, to the Gator’s first franchise win, things were starting to look up in 2020.

I recall a strange feeling one morning a few days after creating the Gators. The pure excitement of creating my own local, competitive baseball team was wearing off. I sat up in bed as the morning sun rose and nervously listed off all the items of Gator business that needed to be taken care of: Jerseys, Hats, Waivers, League Dues, etc. The list goes on. It took a lot more than I was expecting to make the magic happen. It was safe to say I had underestimated the task simply because I was so excited to be able to play baseball again in a real game-like situation with umpires.  

The apartment was empty again in the mornings when the lockdown ended and Shawn returned to work. Although I would occasionally wake up anxiously listing off the day’s Gator duties, there was something worse that was robbing me of sleep each and every week morning. Construction. Deafening, screeching construction smack dab right next to our apartment on Route 44 in Lakeville.  The apartment building would shake from the jackhammers, the grinding of the caterpillar tracks on the excavators felt like they were making my ears bleed, even with the windows closed. This started like clockwork every weekday at 7:15 AM. Therefore, I would wake up every day with the construction and start working on Emails and making phone calls to work on Gator business.

My main working area was the apartment’s balcony, the sunlight crushed the porch in the morning making it very nice to do work and have coffee out there. Soon enough I had dubbed the apartment in Lakeville the Gator Offices, location of the offices of the GM (yours truly), the Team President (Shawny), our Skipper (Jeremy, formally Coach Stew), and of course our beautiful statistician and scorekeeper (Book Keep Lindz).

The first thing I had to do was contact potential sponsors to help fund our season. Thankfully, at this point in time, the Orioles informed their Minor Leaguers that we would be paid through June, which led to compensation for the remainder of the summer. Selfishly, I found myself in a position where it was in my best interest to prioritize fundraising for the Gators to create those games-like reps for myself. 

Less selfishly, the Gators created opportunities that benefited many people in the moment, as well as for the future. I knew we wouldn’t have trouble finding players, but we had so many high-quality guys on and off the field that wanted to compete. Every practice, every game and any Gator event, we were a walking Energy Bus. It made every moment we spent together special during the craziness and uncertainty that 2020 featured. For the future, the Gators brought groups of unfamiliar people together and created the Gator Gang. One group united by our home area, our hunger to play ball, and our desire for a distraction from 2020’s ugliness with fun and competitive nights at the ballpark. It made the only season in Gators history about more than just baseball. This was our way of enduring through the most turbulent times of our lives and something we could not have accomplished without help.  

There will never be enough ways to describe my gratitude to the sponsors of the Great Falls Gators. During these trying times for businesses all over the country, the Gators were able to find enough gracious local sponsors to help us pay for all summer season expenses. One of my proudest accomplishments from the whole process was that every Great Falls Gator was able to play for free. This was only possible because of the great businesses that support us. It is a true testament to the generosity of these Northwest Corner businesses as well as other businesses who contributed from afar. The entire Gator Gang is forever grateful! 

Technically our first practice was on June 10th behind Patco in Lakeville, about a Patty Mahomes flick-of-the-wrist away from the Gator Offices. I would describe that day more as a recruiting and batting practice session to see who was really interested out of the gate. Hell, I texted my buddy Seth Sherwood about the Gators 15 minutes before practice and at 6:05 he was filling out a form to join the team. Relative to how fast the Gators franchise was created, Seth’s quick path to joining the team doesn’t sound as crazy in hindsight. 

Our first documented practice was on June 14th, again behind Patco. We had a beautiful day weather-wise, but the best part was getting old teammates from Housatonic and the Trojans back together to have some fun on the ballfield. We were low on numbers so we did teams of three in order to have a full defense and let pitchers rotate on and off the mound as they wished. 

As we inched closer to the first game of the season, we scheduled a scrimmage at Community Field in Litchfield. (pic of Walt watching the game) My buddy Kyle and I organized the game between the Gators and Elmer’s Angels on Father’s Day. Kyle joked that day saying the scrimmage was ‘just to see what I was missing out on’ because Elmer’s originally recruited me before the formation of the Gators. We didn’t quite play a full game and some pitchers were flip-flopping from one team to another to get more innings, but it was still a great day. 

Due to new teams joining the CTL late, like the Gators among others, the schedule was not announced until the Phase 2 Reopening on June 17th. We finally found out that our first game was going to be against another new team to the CTL, the Terryville Blacksox. They were not unfamiliar to our TriState League players, though, especially the Trojans guys. The Trojans and the Blacksox have been duking it out atop the TriState League for the last eight seasons. The Gators season was going to start out with a marquee matchup that to some, was personal.

Lindsey and I were off for the North. We made a pit stop in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina with one of my favorite teammates I’ve had in my career, Robbie Thorburn. As Forrest Gump would say, Robbie was one of my best good friends and the only guy I’ve ever had as a Spring Training roommate in my first three pro springs. 

After a peaceful few days on the beach, we crossed back over the border of Connecticut on March 21, one day after Governor Lamont signed an executive ‘stay-at-home’ order that would take effect two days later. Upon my return home, the Spring Training blinders that I was wearing regarding the situation had been removed. The United States went into a nationwide lockdown, the likes of which no one had seen in 100 years. 

During the winter, I lived partly with my parents at home and other times would crash at my girlfriend Lindsey’s apartment in Lakeville. When I returned this spring for the lockdown, I moved into the apartment with her and her brother Shawn. April came around and we acquired one more roommate, Jeremy, one of our best friends from high school who had lived with Lindsey and Shawn in Florida. Not only did we have good vibes in the apartment, but rent was pretty cheap too!

Lindsey and Jeremy still had to work through lockdown, but Shawn and I both had paid time off. I would still occasionally take batting practice and ground balls during the lockdown, along with hiking to get outside. But often when the weather was anywhere near decent, Shawn and I hit the links because it was one of the few activities still open to the public during the pandemic. Shawn had some more experience golfing than me but we were both starting to get serious about golf. We both received new clubs over the holiday season from our families after playing a decent amount in the fall of 2019. 

So we golfed. And golfed, and golfed, and golfed, and golfed some more. Lindsey and Jeremy would hop in on the action sometimes, but Shawn and I had seriously developed a golfing addiction. There weren’t too many days in April and May of 2020 when you didn’t see “The Dunkin’ Boys” roll up to the first tee box at Canaan Country Club with two large iced coffees loaded with Turbo Shots ready to attack the pin. Almost every time we went we would walk 18 holes, which is anywhere from 7-10 miles depending on the course. We played through rain, snow, sleet, whipping winds. You name it, we played through it this spring. 

On my way down to Spring Training, I was playing a decent amount of golf and I cannot describe to you how bad I was during some of those rounds on my own. I’m talking averaging 55-60 on 9 holes kind of bad, although some of these courses in Maryland and Florida were much harder than Canaan Country Club. By May, after playing an absurd amount of golf day in and day out, it’s fair to say I was averaging Bogey golf, or a stroke under that on my good days or at an easier course. For local golfers, my best score on 9 holes at Canaan Country Club is a 38 (+3) and my best at Hotchkiss is a 43 (+7). I would attribute my improvement in golf more to a better understanding of how and when to play conservatively in order to limit mistakes. Just two or three shots can blow up your whole round if you are not focused. 

The mental side of golf and baseball are similarly complex and fragile. The mental approach is complex in that mechanically I could remember five things that will help me smoke a drive into the fairway, but I would forget something as simple as keeping my head down throughout the swing. Then, I found myself shanking a top-spinning worm-burner that only made it as far as the Senior’s Tee Box. Like in baseball, sometimes less is more mentally in golf. The mental game of golf is fragile in that one bad hit or one miscalculation on the course can lead to a downward spiral in ones round. Sometimes, the strongest weapon a golfer can have is a short memory, just like baseball. 

*Record scratch* Wait just a damn minute. What sport do I play again? After doing some math, by the beginning of June Shawn and I had played roughly 45 rounds of golf in 90 days. 2020 was getting so scary and uncertain I almost forgot that I was a professional baseball player and I was not chasing down a college golf scholarship. There was one positive that did come from golfing that people will not believe. As I said, when we golfed we would always walk 18 holes, which was about an eight-mile walk. All that walking, combined with unintentional intermittent fasting led me to lose around 20 pounds of fat from playing golf. Shawn and I would be so occupied with getting to the course and getting our 18 in that we would arrive hungry, proceed to golf for 4 hours while walking eight miles consuming nothing but large coffee. Granted, I did not realize I was slightly overweight for my body type until after the fact, but it was a layer of fat mostly on the upper half of my body that I shedded. 

So it was June, I probably played more golf than Tiger Woods during the lockdown and I had lost 20+ pounds. I knew I needed baseball badly. But how could I do that? I tried to get some simulated scrimmages in with a few local ballplayers. I tried my best to keep the groups small enough to not create concern among locals. Still, town officials were not pleased with this and that and we had to stop until Connecticut entered Phase II after the lockdown. 

An old teammate of mine from the Team Connecticut (TCB) days, Kyle Maglio, contacted me and asked if I wanted to play with his Adult League called the Elmer’s Angels in the Connecticut Twilight League (CTL). At first, I was on the fence about the idea. As badly as I wanted to play, I thought there was still a chance that a Minor League Baseball season would occur. In which case I could just play pick-up games locally instead of committing to traveling all over the state. After some thought, I had to satisfy my itch of getting back into any kind of game setting and competing, so I told Kyle I was probably going to play for the Angels. 

After giving it even more thought over the course of a few days, I was having second thoughts. For one, the local and competitive Adult League in the Northwest Corner, the TriState Baseball League, was canceled due to Covid-19. There were players from that league and other young, talented collegiate players in the area looking to play. I knew if I committed to a team in Newington, I wouldn’t be able to organize pick-up games or batting practice sessions as frequently as I would like with those players. Quite possibly not at all. I was not sure what to do.

The date was June 8th, Minor League Baseball was still in limbo. At this point in time, a Major League season looked less than likely with the direction those negotiations were going. So I came up with an idea that I presented to my roommates and our friend who we were hanging out with that night, Chance. 

“We could make a team of players from the Northwest Corner to play in that league with the Elmers Angels,” I said sort of thinking out loud. No one thought too little or too much of the idea. It was not a bad idea, but even to myself, it seemed pretty far-fetched off the bat. We began to spitball team name ideas.

“What if we used Great Falls?” Lindsey suggested. We all were excited about the idea because we thought if we used that name, we would be able to ask the Great Falls Brewery to be our main sponsor. 

“Oooooh gotta do Gators with that, gotta be like the Florida Gators that’d be heat!” If you knew Chance, you can probably hear this sentence. But I liked it, a lot. The Great Falls Gators. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? 

It was late that Monday night and I grabbed a silver Sharpie and my laptop to think of designs for the logo. I traced parts of a large generic G and made the inside look like a Gator Tail. Then I traced a random Gator illustration I found from a Google search and put it on top of the G. 

The excitement of choosing a great team name and creating a quality logo led me to call Scott Dickens the next morning. Scott is the chairman of the (CTL) and the league made it known that they were looking to add new teams for 2020. I had called just in time. He informed me that the season was kicking off at Dunkin’ Donuts Park on June 25th. I had little to no idea what I was doing running a team, but now I found myself in 2020 as the General Manager and shortstop for the Great Falls Gators. 

I had to recruit a roster in a short period of time. The task was made a little bit easier due to the fact that the Tristate Adult Baseball League was canceled. This is a league I have played in before with the debunked Lakeville Firemen and with the Tritown Trojans. I asked my friend Bobby Chatfield, a fellow Sharonite and Trojan southpaw, to pitch for the Gators. Luckily for the Gators, this led to us recruiting six more guys from the talented Trojans team; a team that has been near the top of the Tristate Baseball League since I first played with them during High School in 2013. We also got a few other players who play in the Tristate League, as well as some young college players from all of the divisions. We were able to put together a really quality squad in a short period of time. The Gator Gang was officially born.

By Willy Yahn

Prologue: Calm before the Storm

What do you think of when you think about spring? Naturally, as a baseball player, I think about a typical and enjoyable day of Spring Training. We arrived at Buck O’Neil Spring Training Complex at 7 AM on a pleasantly warm Florida day to enjoy breakfast and coffee with the guys. The Sarasota morning sun beat down on us while we took batting practice and ground balls, hoping for an outward breeze to carry some balls over the fence as well as to cool us down. Next, a Minor League Spring Training game, which for us meant we played either the Red Sox, Twins, or Rays. That has been an average spring day for me for the last three years, and besides waking up early I loved every minute of it. 

2020 Orioles Minor League Spring Training felt different for many reasons, even before the pandemic struck. For starters, there were a lot of new, young coaches that were brought in along with new player development staff members. There were new drills and new ideas that I had never seen or heard of before. They were testing how our bodies moved and operated in relation to our swings and throwing mechanics, for pitchers. It was fascinating to me. Some of the concepts were completely foreign and confusing at first, but the science obtained from new technology within the game spoke for itself. For me, I was excited to learn more ideas about baseball. It was interesting to me to see a teaching style to a game that I know so much about, and I was ready to embrace it in order to get better.

Without going into too much detail, the new style and approach injected into our Minor League system was received well by the players, from what I could see. We discussed everything we were doing in detail from baseball drills to our lifting programs. Players asked questions and received answers that were backed up by analytics and examples of other people who were doing similar things and experienced success. Our player development staff preached a growth mindset, the idea that even if you are given a task that you have trouble with or don’t want to do, you will attack it with your best effort in order to make yourself and your teammates better. What we had going on at camp, from the beginning of early camp on February 17th until Spring Training was shut down, was very exciting and productive work on all sides of the ball. Hitting, pitching, defensively, we were putting in man hours, with intent, day in and day out. 

The day that all changed would be a day in history for negative reasons. Life for Americans and the entire world became very different for the remainder of 2020. This is a series of tales about what a Minor League ballplayer did during a pandemic. 

Chapter 1: The Epidemic & The Roaches

It was March 13, there was a buzz throughout the Orioles Minor League Spring Training clubhouse. No one had any idea what was about to happen. We all heard about Coronavirus breaking out in spots within Sarasota and, to a much larger scale, in various areas of the country. The NBA had positive tests and had already paused their season indefinitely on March 11th. We all had a feeling that Major League and Minor League Baseball Spring Training was in trouble. 

My girlfriend, Lindsey, and I had planned in advance for her to visit for a week during her time off in March. So she was literally on the plane to Florida when all the players received an email to notifying us that Spring Training was being shut down immediately and that we had to go home as soon as possible. Tough luck, eh? But originally when they said this, the timeline was only for 2 weeks to a month. We players knew this was not ideal and a scary health situation for the entire country. But with the temporary timeline that was in place, it sounded like an issue that we would soon have in the rearview mirror and then get right back to baseball. That was quite the miscalculation. 

I picked Lindsey up from the Tampa Bay airport and told her the news. We were both upset because in the grand scheme of things this was a scary situation for our loved ones and the whole country. But she knew having Spring Training and baseball taken away hurt me. This moment that I had worked for through another cold and miserable winter was on pause. Selfishly, I was feeling good in a few Spring Training intrasquad games and was excited to build off of a successful 2019 campaign. The realization that 2020 would not provide that chance was a major low-point. 

After Lindsey and I had a car ride from Tampa International to Bradenton to dissect the situation, we arrived at our less-than-ideal Airbnb situation. For starters, it was a Bungalow in a 55+ community, to which we were given the wrong lot number. My memory is slightly foggy because I blocked this misery out and it was approaching 2 AM so it went something sort of like this. 

We pulled up to Lot E6, which it said on the website, but we learned after the fact that we were supposed to be at Lot E15. I got out and the Bungalows looked similar but the entrance instructions on the App were not matching what we were seeing. Then, we hear what sounded like the barks of a small-sized dog inside the Bungalow, followed by footsteps. An old man came to the door looking incredibly concerned. 

“What are you doing here?” the elderly man asked with a soft intensity probably half awake, the poor guy. Lindsey and I stood on his porch and explained how we had gotten into this confusing situation and apologized for disturbing him. We tried contacting Airbnb to figure out the issue, to no avail. So, frustrated and tired as could be, we left the 55+ community with the back of the Tacoma overflowing with all of our belongings. We got a hotel room for the night to finally get some sleep until we could get this sorted out in the morning. 

We got it all squared away the next day, with a refund for the night from Airbnb, and at last we got into our double-wide Bungalow. I’m not kidding you, I absolutely loved this Bungalow. It was the perfect size for just Lindsey and myself, but if we had one more person it would have been far too small. 

After we were settled in we met up with friends for food and drinks on the water, had a grand old time, and Uber’d back to the Bungalow and went to bed. That would prove to be our only smooth-sailing day of Lindsey’s trip to Florida. 

  The next day we went to beautiful Siesta Key for a beach day. We used one of the beach accesses further down from the main part of Siesta Key to find a less crowded area and socially distance. But we looked down the beach and could see a flood of people gathered for Spring Break festivities, right at the beginning of the pandemic. It was a scary sight. 

Lindsey and I returned to the Bungalow and started to get ready to go to Texas Roadhouse for some steaks. I was watching TV in the living room area and heard Lindsey start going bananas over something in the bedroom. I entered as she continued to scream while she explained that she saw a massive cockroach and it was somewhere in her clothes. I did what any man would do: I went to the kitchen and handed Lindsey a cooking utensil and hid behind her and ushered her towards the cockroach. I was so brave!

The cockroach retreated under the dresser and Lindsey and I really did not know what to do. We called Airbnb and explained there were cockroaches, only to be told, ‘It’s Florida, one or two cockroaches isn’t a huge deal’. I am trying my best to not take any jabs at Florida but come on people, that should not be normal!

Anyway, we were starving so in the meantime we put our belongings on the bed and couch to keep the floor crawlers off of our things and we left. We ate juicy steaks at Texas Roadhouse after we returned to assess the situation in the Bungalow. What we found was nothing short of nightmare fuel. 

Cockroaches. Not one, not two. Many cockroaches. About a dozen or so. Darting across the floor randomly left and right in every part of that Bungalow. What a scene: Lindsey and I frantically tiptoed around palm-sized roaches as we evacuated the infested double-wide dwelling. We shook out all of our clothes and belongings to make sure we would not be taking any passengers up north. It was approaching midnight, and Lindsey and I hit the highway to get as many miles between us and the overrun cockroach Bungalow as possible.

Additional Chapters will follow shortly!

My parents and I hightailed it for Hartford at 7am from my host families house in New Market, MD for my Double-A debut. I slept for the entire ride and my parents dropped me off at the hotel in Newington where I met up with my man Cole Billingsley, another Frederick Key that got the call up who made the wise decision to fly instead of drive. We took the bus over to the stadium and walked into the clubhouse, which was the nicest one I’ve ever been in either as an away or home player. After putting all my stuff into my locker and saying hi to guys I knew and meeting some new teammates that I didn’t, Buck Britton came around the corner and posted the line-up. There I was, batting sixth and playing third base in Hartford on a Wednesday night.

I didn’t realize how nervous I was until my first at-bat. I made one play it the field, receiving a two-hopper from a lefty and proceeding to bobble it to make it look way more difficult than it was. Then it was finally my time to walk up to the plate. Dunkin Donuts Park played ‘Little Willy’ by the Sweets as I prepared for my first Double-A plate appearance.

“Cause Little Willy, Willy won’t go home,” blared throughout the stadium, a clever play by whoever made that choice considering, it was the closest I had been to home since February 1st.

I took the first pitch I saw for a ball, then I got a fastball that was up and in, but in the strike zone. I kept my hands inside the baseball and got the barrel to it, driving it down the left field line. Off the bat I thought for sure it was going foul, but to my surprise it had way more backspin than side spin and appeared to hit the base of the foul pole and roll about 150 feet back towards third base. Rylan Bannon came around to score and we were up 1-0.

The Yard Goats manager came out and argued that the ball was foul, and I had a gut feeling that they were going to call it back. They spoke for about a minute or so and I had a chance to look around the stadium to soak up in the moment. I found my parents in the stadium, really focused while praying the umpires didn’t mess this call up. I saw a group of friends from home down the first base line going bananas on the fact that I was even standing on the field. The umpires concluded that the call on the field stood, and I had my first Double-A hit and RBI.

But remember how I said, ‘the base of the foul pole’? I didn’t realize it at the time, but many people came up to me after the game and said that should have been called a home run. That’s why it ricocheted back so hard, because it hit the concrete yellow line that is considered the base of the left field foul pole. What could have been right? I didn’t care, we had a game to win and that was the Bowie Baysox first run.

The top of the 9th of that game was a crazy inning. We were down 6-5 with three outs to go. After a single, a sacrifice bunt, and an error, it was 1st and 3rd with one out and my time to hit. Skip pinch ran for our right fielder who had just reached on the error, so we had speed on both bases and he gave me the safety squeeze sign. All I had to do was get the bunt down towards the first baseman to get a game tying RBI with the speedy Ryan McKenna on 3rd. Instead, I worked one of my eight walks on the season (8 walks, yes that’s right, ocho, eight total walks) to load the bases.

Our left fielder, my roommate and my dawg Billingsley, then beat out a ground ball to second to prevent the double play and tie the game, but hurt his knee stepping on first. We put up four more runs after that to take a 10-6 lead, but after having to use two pinch runners, I had to go out and play left field for the first time since 2015 college summer ball (“a throwaway game up in Rochester”-Herb Brooks… but actually). I had no clue what I was doing out there in the bottom of the 9th in my Double-A debut. Literally 24 hours earlier, I was in Frederick rounding the bases after the guy behind me hit a game-winning bomb in the bottom of the 8^th. Now I was playing left field against the Hartford Yardgoats. I was trying to focus on the foreign position while fans started chanting “UConn!… Huskies!…” and even “Housatonic baby, Berkshire League!” Somehow you can hear that stuff more in the outfield. Luckily for the Baysox, I had no action out there and we won the game 10-8.

After the game I met a crowd of friends, family, former teammates and classmates from all over the state who came out to watch. I couldn’t have felt more grateful to all those people who came on such short notice to support me. It was one of the happiest and overwhelmingly joyous days of my career.

Finally, we went back to our home field for the first time in Bowie where I found my truck after my amazing host dad and brother drove it over there from New Market (Jon and Lucas you’re heroes). I moved in with my new awesome and generous host family, the Fenn’s, and settled into the second half of the season. Before I continue, I still cannot stress enough how amazing both of my host families were for me this year. I could not have gotten luckier to have the Witt’s and the Fenn’s open their homes to me and create great friendships with each family.

After a pretty solid first week with Bowie, things started to go south. The swing and confidence that I had developed through my Frederick experience felt like it was eluding me as July began, and the month would prove to be the worst slump I had ever experienced in my entire life. I was in the “Interstates” as July came to a close, meaning I was hitting in the 100s most of the month. I hit .148 for the month and brought my Bowie average to .188 after an 0 for 3 performance with two strikeouts in Binghamton. Thankfully, so very thankfully, that was where I bottomed out, as my accursed month of July 2019 came to a close.

 

My second game of August, in Trenton on Thursday the 8th, I had my first three hit game of the second half. My average went from .191 to .225 in three at-bats (yeah, that’s where I was at that point). My at-bats were low because I was the back-up infielder, just like I was in April in Frederick. Our third baseman was an All-Star, and our second baseman played in the big leagues for the Phillies last year, so I was not surprised, being that we were in a playoff push. Despite that, in 13 games in August I hit .289 and it couldn’t have felt better. Not just to salvage the second half and at least get to a more serviceable .223 (ew), but to be able to contribute when it mattered during the playoff push.

After an Erie Seawolves loss late in the schedule, we finally clinched the Western Division while in Richmond, Virginia, and we were playoff bound. It was my first time making the playoffs in professional baseball and it was electric. The Baysox bought us 270 beers and 40 champagne bottles to pop and spray all over each other and drink as much or as little as you want, it was an absolute blast. Raging like that with the boys, and having videos of us posted everywhere doing so, was really weird. But it’s just what you do in professional baseball when you win. It is probably the only time in any of our lives when we can be drunk and rowdy and have videos of us posted on social media and it’s totally OK.

We gave it all we had in the playoffs and made it to the championship series, but lost to the Trenton Thunder, the Yankees Double-A affiliate. They brought down Severino, Betances, Montgomery, and Tarpley to face us in that series, and the only game we won of the four was the one that Severino pitched. It was crazy seeing those guys up close, considering I grew up a Yankees fan and I knew I was going to be watching some of those guys as the Yankees neared the MLB playoffs.

 

So, that was it. September 13 was the 148th and final game of the 2019 season. I said goodbye to the Fenn’s and went back to New Market and said one last goodbye to the Witt’s and went home.

You never know what this game is going to throw at you. Over the course of an at-bat, a game, a season, and a career, the game takes twists and turns you don’t expect. 2019 did just that. This season gave me what felt like the peak of my ability as well rock bottom of my ability. This offseason is going to be a huge one for continuing on this current trajectory towards a dream I have had since I was four years old, and I cannot wait to get better and get to work.

 

 

2019 was a wild ride. So much so that I’m not sure where to begin with talking about the year. The last time I blogged feels like years ago, but it was the second week in May, in the middle of the best month of baseball I have ever had by far. Since that time, there has been even higher highs and some of the lowest lows. It all added up to my first full-season of Minor League Baseball, since last season I started in Extended Spring Training before playing with the Aberdeen Ironbirds. Baseball has always been good to me, whether things were going exactly how I wanted them to or when I hit the worst slump of my career, the game is its own teacher to the players, and I will be a student of the game as long as I live, learning something about the game every single day. Here’s some of the fun experiences and what I learned from baseball in 2019.

Let’s backtrack a little here, May 8th was the last time I checked in on the blog, when I wrote about having 111 games left in the season and the day before I hit my 3rd career home run against the Potomac Nationals. To say a lot has transpired since then would be quite the understatement, and at that point in time the roller coaster ride was just plummeting down that first steep drop. During the second weekend in June our manager, Ryan Minor, brought me into his office while we were in Kinston, North Carolina, and told me I would play for him in Carolina League All-Star game.

What’s the first thing you’re supposed to do when something good happens kids? That’s right, call ya Mutha! The hardest part for my parents was to not spill the beans before the league made the official announcement that Monday, but they managed to keep quiet.

I vividly remember on Opening Day, when I was not in the starting lineup, leaning on the dugout railing and looking at the Carolina League All-Star Classic logo on the grass in front of the dugout thinking ‘well, I’ll probably have those three days off in the middle of June’. This is not because I doubted my ability, more so the fact that my role on the team was that of a backup infielder for the month of April. The reality of the situation was that you don’t see too many back-up infielders representing the Carolina League’s best.

The last day of April was the day things started going my way individually, as I entered the day hitting .246 while playing every second or third game. So far, though, that game was one of the toughest losses of my professional career and a game I will never forget.

It was a Tuesday in Frederick, and we were playing the Wilmington Blue Rocks. Like I said, individually it was a good night, I had three knocks with a double and my batting average went from .246 to .279 in one day. However, not only were the Key’s trying to win a ball game, but we entered the 9th inning winning 4-0, allowing no hits to that point. Mike Baumann, Co-Pitcher of the Year for the Orioles minor league system this season, had a decent start you could say. He allowed no hits in 6.2 innings with 12 punchies, not bad. The 7th and 8th went smoothly and the first batter of the 9th struck out, and we were two outs away from a no-hitter.

Slight spoiler: I tried to block the end of that game out of my memory until revisiting it for this post, so for the following information I had to go look at the game log.

Here we go: Walk. Walk. Pitching Change. Walk. Now the bases are loaded with one out with the tying run at the plate. Error. Walk. You see where this is going? Bases still loaded, we are winning only 4-2 now with one out and still no-hitting the Blue Rocks. Wild pitch, the runner on 3rd scores to make it 4-3, and now runners are on 2nd and 3rd with one out. The next batter flies out to our left fielder in foul territory and the runner at 3rd cannot tag up.

Now, this part I remember vividly. 2 outs, top of the 9th, Keys are up 4-3 and one out away from a no-hitter, but more importantly a win. I remember like it was yesterday thinking to myself ‘this guy is going to scorch one in my direction and I’m going to make a diving play to win us the game and secure the no hitter. I’m going to be the hero’. Seconds later, the right-handed hitter crushes a ball to my backhand. I had a good reaction, I went full extension, and it misses my web by the width of a dog’s whisker. My flop onto the dirt creates a cloud around me. As the dirt cloud settled, I peered down the third baseline from my stomach as the ball rolled to the wall. I whipped my head around towards home plate and watched the two Blue Rock runners score and celebrate taking the lead 5-4 with just one hit the whole game. The kid in me felt like it was that moment in the first Toy Story when Buzz takes the leap to fly out the window, but then falls onto the staircase and his arm falls off, don’t act like you don’t get the reference. It felt like that times 100 after the final out in the bottom of the 9^th.

The best part about baseball is that, barring an off-day, there’s always a game the next day for redemption either as at team or individually. Thus, May begins, a month that I will never forget. May 1st was the date of my first professional home run, a sound and a sight that I’ll never forget.

Despite it being a pretty far shot to left-center, I was sprinting out of the box, as I have done with almost every home run I’ve ever hit. I’m not one for pimping dingers, and the one time I decide to will probably land in someone’s glove just in front of the warning track. I was so excited I honestly can’t remember if I got the silent treatment or not, but eventually guys started to get excited for me if not right away. One of my teammates, Ryan, comes up to me and says, “How did that feel?” I just shook my head and jokingly said “I’m good, I’m all set, I can retire happy now.”

Luckily that wasn’t my last game of my career, and the next day on May 2nd we played a day game to conclude our four-game series against the Blue Rocks, and the game I hit my second career dinger. I had gone two seasons, and month into my third season, without hitting one and I had two within 16 hours of each other.

Spring Training stats don’t officially count, so I hadn’t hit a home run that actually counted since May 2017, a Grand Slam in the AAC tournament. After that second homer in as many games, the feeling I was feeling is almost indescribable. It was like a buzzing feeling, just pure joy, the type of joy that is the reason we all play this game. Smacking a single or a double brings a similar joy. But crushing a ball, watching it fly into the distance, and seeing the field umpire point the sky then twirl his index finger signaling the home run, and then the victory lap to look around and admire your work and see your teammates and fans happy, it’s perfection.

So, in a four-game span from April 30 to May 3, my average from .246 to .338 and I finally snuck a few ding dongs over the fence. My favorite stat to that point was the fact that my On Base Percentage (OBP) was still lower than my batting average, sitting at .329 thanks to some sacrifice flies and a sacrifice bunt. My OBP finally rose above my average when I mixed in my first walk of the season a few games later. But baseball being baseball, on May 4th, I finished that great week up with an 0 for 4 performance with two strikeouts on a rainy night in Lynchburg, VA. Never too high and never too low, as my old man Walt always says.

The following day we got rained out and traveled back to Frederick, followed by a day off on Monday. I was talking to Mama Yahn on the phone, catching up and talking about the week, when I found out I was the Carolina League Player of the Week. How does anyone find out anything anymore, even about themselves? You guessed it, Twitter. The notification popped up on my phone while I was making a late breakfast downstairs at the Witt’s house. That week in particular but also that month of May was the best ball I had ever played in my life. I closed my eyes a few more times while hitting that month and added three more homers. I was able to keep the average up in the beginning of June to finish the first half at .296.

So, there I am, with my girlfriend Lindsey, Sean Miller and David Lebron on a Monday afternoon preparing to get on a bus for the pre-All-Star Game party at the Flying Dog Brewery the night before the game. Then our skipper comes up to us.

“What’s going on everyone? Willy you’re going to Bowie, they need you on Wednesday,” he said in the most casual, Ryan Minor way you could imagine. Have you ever heard such good news, or gotten so excited by something you heard, that the act of hearing it felt more like a slap in the face? That’s what I felt. Lindsey told me after the fact that I played it pretty cool, but internally it didn’t feel like I did.

“Really? Cool, thanks Minor,” I said while allegedly keeping calm. “Will they be in Bowie?”

“No, they’re gonna need you in Hartford.” Another slap in the face. I thanked him for the news, and he walked away, my vision was getting spotty. I had to say it in my head a few times to process it, ‘I’m playing at Dunkin’ Donuts Park on Wednesday’. Then Sean Miller, who has such a way with words, had the line of the century.

“Congrats dude, is your stomach in your butthole right now, or what?” That is verbatim what he said. Never change Sean.

 

After contributing a pair of knocks for the North Division in the All-Star Game, dancing in between innings and our squad getting the win, I had to prepare to leave at 7 the next morning. I had to say goodbye to Frederick, a great coaching staff including two of my favorites in Ryan Minor and Bobby Rose, and the Witt family who hosted me for the first half. It was a bittersweet night, having to pack up my locker and my entire life that was in that homey room in New Market, but it was even harder to try to sleep knowing the next day would bring my Double-A debut in Hartford.

*”I’m Home Mama” Part II coming next week!*