By: Connor Laeng
Where do I even begin? Baseball has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. From the time I played tee ball until now, being a freshman college baseball player. Baseball has taken me to some incredible places. In fact, I have been fortunate enough to play baseball in six different states including Oregon, Washington, Arizona, California, Georgia, and Maryland. Not only have I played baseball in six states, I have visited seven different Major League ballparks and soon to be nine once Major League baseball returns to normal. We have no connections to New York, but ever since I was little, I loved the Yankees. I also started liking the Giants in about 2007 when we started attending Salem-Keizer Volcanoes games.
I was first introduced to professional baseball in 2006 when we went to our first Salem-Keizer Volcanoes baseball game. I still remember getting my first foul ball. We were sitting down in the right field bleachers. The ball came flying towards us and my dad gets up and starts running to grab it. He ended up out running the couple other kids who wanted it, but he did come back and hand it to me. From that point on, I was hooked on baseball.
Back when I was six years old, we were down in California for a vacation to Disneyland. On our last day I had the choice of going to Disneyland one more time or going to the Orioles vs Angels game. I choose the Angels game. Do not ask me how I still remember this, but we sat in the second deck on the first base side and on the first pitch of the game the Orioles Brian Roberts hit a home run to right field. The Angels ended up coming back to win 8-4 though. My parents still ask me how I can remember that, and I have zero clue. It is just a memory implanted in my brain forever.
One of the most memorable moments I can remember having in Safeco Field, well now T-Mobile Park, was in September of 2009 when Ichiro hit a walk off home run against Mariano Rivera. Even though I went back to the hotel devasted, looking back on it now it was incredibly special to watch two future Hall of Famers do battle.
Living only about thirty minutes from the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes ballpark, I’ve been able to witness and be a part of professional baseball for years. From getting my first foul ball to hosting Giants 2019 first round pick Hunter Bishop. My family and I have hosted numerous players over the past few years including Junior Amion, Chris Burks, Ryan Howard, and Hunter Bishop. We still stay in contact with them. They are all incredibly nice people and are very special to our family. Even though we did not host Gio Brusa, we grew extremely close to him during the 2016 season. I still text back and forth quite often with Gio. He is one of the nicest people you will ever meet.
Thanks to the 9 Inning Know it All crew in Kelly and Josh, in 2013 we went to the Arizona Fall League. During the 2013 AFL season, I had the opportunity to be a bat boy. That was an amazing experience. Being up close and personal with some of the best minor league players in the game was really cool. We have been back every year since. I have got many autographs and pictures with now MLB superstars who might not have been at that time. Some of the bigger names I have met at the AFL include: Kris Bryant, Aaron Judge, Corey Seager, Albert Almora (who gave me his bat after one of the games), Cody Bellinger, Tim Tebow, Gleyber Torres, Peter Alonso, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, and Ronald Acuna Jr. Some former players who we ran into in the AFL either coaches or scouting include: Alan Trammel, Reggie Jackson, Kevin Mitchell, Paul Konerko, Matt Holliday, Trevor Hoffman, and Roger Clemens.
In 2015, I had the honor to throw out the first pitch at a Volcanoes game for the late MLB legend and only pitcher to throw a perfect game in the World Series, Mr. Don Larsen. That was an incredible experience to say the least.
About two weeks after that, my family and I went down to San Francisco to watch the Nationals play the Giants. We received the opportunity from a family friend to watch batting practice from on the field. That was an unbelievable experience. Up close and personal with guys like Buster Posey, Hunter Pence, Madison Bumgarner, Joe Panik, Brandon Crawford, Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg, and Anthony Rendon. It was amazing!
In 2018, my dad, myself, and one of my friends went down to Arizona to watch Spring Training for a few days before high school baseball started. Long story short, my friend and I received the opportunity to bat boy for the Los Angeles Dodgers! That was an experience I will never forget. Standing right next to Yasiel Puig, Corey Seager, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Turner, and not to mention Matt Kemp’s first game back as a Dodger. It was an unreal experience. The next day, we were able to bat boy again. This time the Dodgers played the Giants. The best part was I was going to be in the Giants’ dugout with Ryan Howard, who we hosted, since he was going to be in uniform and would later come into the game as a substitute. When he went up to hit, it was a surreal feeling to see someone we knew get the opportunity to play in his first MLB Spring Training game.
Baseball has always found its way to follow me around especially the past couple of years. On our way home from a family vacation in Maui, we ran into some MLB player named Buster Posey in the airport.
Another example of this is in 2018 when we were in Arizona for a baseball tournament in Tucson and the University of Arizona. My dad and I were hitting in the cage, and somebody comes into the cage next to us in Pirates gear. We noticed he was doing tee work but wearing his Evoshield elbow guard and wrist tape. If you know my dad, you know he likes to talk to people; thus, he asked him, and we ended up talking for over an hour. It ended up being a U of A graduate Jared Oliva who was and still is a Pirates minor leaguer. We still keep in touch with him. He has helped me a lot the past few years. Last year he was in Double A and has a good shot of making it to the bigs in the near future.
Finally, 2019 was an incredible year outside of a hiccup in the middle of August. Heading into the 2019 high school baseball season, we knew we had a chance to make a run at the state title but didn’t know that we could be as good as we ended up being. We started a little shaky but finished the regular season on an eleven-game winning streak including sweeping the defending 5A runner up, Crescent Valley. We went into the playoffs as the #1 seed. We beat Hillsboro in round one then beat La Salle in round two to set up a semifinal against Thurston. It was Decker Steadman for Thurston (Oregon Commit) against Kaleb Kantola for us (Chemeketa commit). The atmosphere was unreal. We ended up beating Thurston 1-0 in eight innings to advance to the 5A state title. On Saturday June 1, we had the opportunity to win the first State Championship in baseball for Central in 61 years. Not only did we win, we did so in a commanding fashion by beating Pendleton 11-4! My senior year was one I will never forget. The last time I put on a Central Panther baseball uniform was to play in the 5A State Championship. I still go back and look at pictures and get goosebumps.
In June, I had the opportunity to watch Adley Rutschman go #1 overall in the MLB Draft. I had the opportunity to get to know Adley over the past ten years or so because his dad, Randy Rutschman, coached at George Fox. I had been going to their baseball camps every year since I was about 6 or 7 since we knew a player there at that time. The weekend before the draft, we drove down to Corvallis to see Adley one more time before getting drafted. I got to talk to him for a little bit. It was very weird to see him go #1 overall.
In the middle of August came my hiccup. The day before we were supposed to go to New York and Boston for my graduation trip, I dislocated my left knee cap while taking ground balls at Western Oregon University. We were not able to go to New York or Boston since I was not allowed to fly, but a week later I was cleared, and we flew to LA to go to Dodger Stadium and Petco Park. We saw the Red Sox in San Diego and we ended up running into a few of the Red Sox players at their hotel in downtown San Diego. I was lucky enough to get a picture with one of my favorite current players JD Martinez.
This past year, we went to Maui again for a family vacation again. My dad and I went to the Sentry Tournament of Champions PGA golf tournament. We ended up seeing World Series MVP Cole Hamels, two-time World Series Champion Shane Victorino, and ESPN legend Chris Berman.
I’ve been fortunate enough to get many autographs from some of the best players to ever play in MLB. My collection has grown over the years to the point now where it takes hours to count how many I have. Some of my best include: Sandy Koufax, Steve Garvey, Mike Trout, Cody Bellinger, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Roger Clemens, Reggie Jackson, Alan Trammell, Bryce Harper, Stephen Strasburg, Kevin Mitchell, Lee Smith, Ronald Acuna Jr, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, George Springer, Clayton Kershaw, Cal Ripken Jr, Willie Mays, Johnny Bench, and Don Larsen.
So, what does baseball mean to me? I am not really able to put it into words. Baseball has been part of my life forever. I obsess over it almost all the time. I can look at my swing as well as big leaguer’s swings for hours. I can watch MLB players take ground balls for days. I do not get tired of just watching baseball. MLB Network is always on in our house. I constantly want more. I guess you could say baseball keeps me sane. I am not sure what to do outside of baseball. During this pandemic, it is been tough to not have baseball around. It especially feels weird for me to not be on a baseball field this time of year. Not being able to watch MLB games is very rough. The one thing that is nice is the amount of Zoom calls baseball people are doing. I have listened to so many the past few weeks from many minor league and major league coaches. I’ve learned a lot about the swing and defense in the past few weeks, it makes me even more excited to get back out on a baseball field and play again.
Needless to say, baseball has been a part of my life forever and I cannot wait until baseball in general returns to normalcy.