True love of the game
KC Mack understands better than most the famous quote from Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella.
The Brooklyn Dodgers great once sat in the dugout of Ebbets Field and said “To play in the big leagues, you got to be a man, but you got to have a lot of little boy in you, too.”
The senior Central Valley catcher admits he has a lot of that “little boy” in him, too. It would be difficult to find anyone who has more fun playing baseball than Mack.
“I love to be out here and have fun,” he says after an off-day practice session. “I probably have more fun and goof around more than I should. I just love this game.”
Mack balances his own joy with the team’s need for senior leadership. This year’s Central Valley varsity features only five seniors – one fewer than the number of sophomores on the roster. When Mack lifts his catcher’s mask and looks around his starting infield, he sees sophomores in all four positions: Stefano Pau at third, Dane Berg at shortstop, David Borgman at second base and Joe Arlt or Scott Simon at first base.
“I know what these young guys are going through,” Mack said. “My brother (Corey) is a sophomore and he’s playing on the team this year. I came up to the varsity at the end of my sophomore year and I remember what it was like.
“But at the same time, we need everyone to step up to the plate every game. We know we need these sophomores if we’re going to go anywhere this season.”
Mack has confidence in his young teammates. He marvels at just how good they can be by the time they’re CV seniors.
“This is a pretty special group of sophomores,” Mack said. “Most of these guys have been playing together since they were peewees. Picture these guys bigger, stronger and with a world of confidence.”
In the world of baseball, the catcher is supposed to be a take-charge guy. The vast majority of play takes place in front of him and he’s responsible for calling the plays.
“That’s my job,” he says. “Everyone of us knows what we’re supposed to do on every one of our plays. It’s my job to make sure they all know what we’re doing.”
Central Valley got off to a fast start, winning its first five games, including a 4-0 win at Mead, the only GSL game the Panthers have lost thus far this season.
But since the start of spring break, they have gone through a seven-game stretch where they’ve won just twice – both wins coming against North Central behind stellar pitching performances by seniors Rusty Shellhorn and Trevor Shull.
Shellhorn turned in a spectacular performance, carrying a perfect game into the top of the seventh inning and recording all 21 outs in the game via strikeout in a 5-0 shutout.
“I was just glad to be a part of it,” Mack said. “Rusty was just throwing awesome that game. All I had to do was hold the glove up and he did the rest.”
Shull backed him up with 10-strikeout performance of his own in a 7-3 victory.
Both pitchers are throwing extremely well right now, the catcher said.
“Rusty has such a fantastic breaking ball that I think people don’t really respect his fastball,” Mack said. “He’s got great velocity on his fastball and it has great movement on it. We get a lot of strikeouts on nothing but fastballs.
“Trevor is throwing extremely well right now, too. They’re two different pitchers, but they make my job easy. It took a while for me to learn how to handle Rusty’s curveball, but we have all that worked out.”
The Bears lost for the first time over spring break, getting swept by University in a doubleheader, getting outscored 19-0 in the two games.
“That first game against U-Hi Rusty pitched his heart out,” Mack said. “He really thought that game was his to win.” Mack said his pitcher was really upset when he came out of the game after five innings.
Shellhorn gave up just one run, that coming in the fifth inning, leaving the game trailing 1-0. The Titans scored nine runs in the final two innings to earn a 10-0 victory. The Bears managed just two hits against Titans starter Danny Jordan.
“The second game is the one that bothers me,” Mack said. “We should have come back even harder against them in the second game – done everything we could to keep them from sweeping. But we didn’t, and we need to get to a place where we do.”
The Bears, sitting in fourth place in the GSL standings, are in the home stretch of the season. The only team ahead of them they haven’t played is Ferris, and the Bears face the Saxons this week.
Central Valley’s top two pitchers, Shellhorn and Shull, are outstanding. Shellhorn, a left-hander, has signed a letter of intent to play baseball at Washington State. Shull, a right-hander, has signed to to play at Division I Centenary College of Louisiana at Shreveport.
Having two stellar pitchers has its benefits.
“Rusty told us at the start of the season that, not to be cocky or anything, but that he and Trevor were going to draw a lot of scouts from colleges and from professional baseball teams,” Mack said. “If we played on this team, we were going to get seen by a lot of people.”
That visibility already has paid a dividend for the catcher.
“I just got a letter of intent to play baseball at Green River Community College in Auburn,” he said. “I’m really excited about that. I’ll be the first one in my family to get a college scholarship to play baseball.”