Submarine pitchers mlb 169/9/2023 Perhaps if his dad had never migrated south, O’Day today would be the toothless variety of proĪthlete, but as it turned out, his athletic future rested with his right arm.Īt Bishop Kenny High School in Jacksonville, O’Day played a little third base, but was focused on the mound. Teammate, Maine native Ryan Flaherty, at a rink in Laurel. He still skates, and slyly slides in a comment about “skating circles” around his Orioles Like all professional athletes, O’Day is fiercely competitive. Liked because it was a little bit more aggressive.” I was a center iceman because I had decent puck skills, but I found I was good at skating backward, so I turned into a defenseman, which I really “You’re in Florida, so the competition wasn’t theīest. “I had more fun playing hockey than I did baseball, but I just wasn’t as good at it,” says O’Day, 33. His father, Ralph, is from Chicago, and coached O’Day’s youth hockey team. Up, O’Day’s favorite footwear was ice skates. You’d think a Major League Baseball player who spent his childhood in the Sunshine State would be most comfortable in cleats. TECHNIQUE / ANATOMY OF THE SUBMARINE PITCH: O’Day is known for a unusual pitching motion that hasn’t been used very frequently in MLB. Nearly 15 years later, hitters are still trying to figure out O’Day. Last year and now he’s unhittable,’” Kyle says. “I worked in the athletic department when he was playing at Florida, and I remember a lot of guys saying, ‘What in the world happened? Your brother got cut Spot for him, they eventually gave him a scholarship and made him the team’s closer. This time the coaches not only found a roster He’d added about 15 pounds of muscle to his previously leanįrame, completely reconstructed his throwing motion, and gained about three miles per hour on his fastball. Encouraged by his newfound effectiveness, he decided to come out of “retirement” and onceĪgain try out for the baseball team when he returned to Gainesville for his sophomore year. Suddenly, O’Day was mowing down hitters at an exhilarating rate. With some sidearm stuff was kind of a goof, but in the macro sense, it was as if he was trying to find something.” “Somehow, when he dropped down, he didn’t lose any velocity,” says Kyle, now a coach of endurance athletes in Atlanta. His older brother, Kyle, took notice of the increased movement and pop on his pitches. “Earlier that summer after my freshman year, I was playing catch with my brother behind a lake house we used to rent,” he says. Only this time, he was experimenting with a quirky sidearm delivery that was proving baffling to hitters. Primarily a pitcher in high school and during his brief initial stint as a Gator, O’Day also toed the rubber for his 18-and-over municipal league team. We still wanted to win, but it was just kind of screwing Probably the most fun I ever had playing baseball, because it was the first time it wasn’t to win. “I was playing shortstop, batting cleanup, hittin’ homers. It’s a sunny January morning at a breakfast joint in EllicottĬity, about a month after this unlikeliest of fan favorites re-signed with Baltimore. “Beer league, they’d call it, because there’s guys smoking heaters in the dugout, drinking beer before and after games,” he says, betweenīites of a three-egg omelet packed with mushrooms, onions, peppers, bacon, sausage, and ham. He dismissed the coaches’ suggestion that he transfer to a junior college to improve his game, instead deciding toĬoncentrate on academics (he majored in animal biology with the intention of becoming a veterinarian) and enjoy everything that Gainesville, a world-class School career, he’d passed on offers from a few small colleges and attempted to walk on as a non-scholarship player at the University of Florida, which,Īfter a six-week audition, cut him. Following a solid, if unspectacular, high The summer after his freshman year of college, O’Day joined a men’s league team in his native Jacksonville, FL. His words, as O’s managerīuck Showalter says, “carry weight,” and, in this case, have history to corroborate them. N the world of sports, the tired cliché-“I’d play for free if I had to”-can come across as particularly rich to the cynical fan, especially when uttered byĪ man who just signed a four-year, $31 million contract to throw a baseball.īut Darren O’Day, the Orioles relief pitcher who just said it, is much too bright a guy to flippantly deliver hackneyed phrases.
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