Canzano: Finding (or growing) love for the game

Nature or nurture?

San Francisco Giants minor league baseball complex in Arizona.

I’d be curious to hear your theory. I’ve got mine. But a friend of mine has a 9-year-old son who is absolutely crazy about baseball. He lives it, breathes it, follows it, and plays it.

Do kids still do that like they used to?

They sure do.

For months, I’ve followed on social media and through text exchanges as that little kid took swings off a tee, hit in games, and attended spring training and minor league games. His parents live in Arizona. He can play baseball year-round there. And you can tell the kid is absolutely obsessed with the game.

Nature?

Nurture?

How do we become a die-hard sports fan or participant? How do we fall in love with a sport as a kid? Better yet, in a world that increasingly nudges children toward specialization, how do kids not fall out of love with the games they play?

This particular kid is a fascinating study. His father is close friends with Mark Appel, the Stanford ace pitcher who was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 MLB Draft. Appel is a phenomenal story himself. But this 9-year-old grew up with “Uncle Mark” hanging around the house, and had a front-row seat for what could one-day be a major motion picture script.

Appel was the top pick in the baseball draft that year, selected by the Houston Astros. He received a $6.35 million signing bonus, then promptly went to Single-A and posted a 9.74 ERA in his first 44 innings.

“We’re changing your grip,” the Astros told him.

“We’re altering your release point,” they said.

None of it helped. Appel couldn’t throw strikes. The frustration boiled over in in a well-publicized clubhouse outburst. After lasting less than two innings in a start, Appel hurled a baseball through a particle-board panel in the club house.

It felt so good to blow off some steam that Appel picked up another ball and did it again. Over and over, he threw 80 baseballs as hard as he could through the locker-room panel. It made news. People shook their heads. Appel went to Home Depot, bought supplies, and repaired the wall.

Then came a shoulder problem. Then, a couple of surgeries. Appel struggled to stay healthy and consistently pitch well. He would get labeled one of the biggest busts in MLB Draft history, and at age 26, he announced he was stepping away.

I know where he went.

One of the places, anyway. Appel went on a hiatus that included a van trip and a drive across the country. He parked his rig for a spell on the street outside his good friend’s house in Arizona. He just took a break, and got his head right, and fell into his faith. “Uncle Mark” spent a healthy amount of time around that little kid.

I love stories of resilience and perseverance. Appel spent four years out of baseball. I talked with him a couple of times in that stretch. At some point, he decided to attempt a comeback. The Phillies held his rights. His goal was to get to the big leagues. That’s it. Just get there, throw some strikes, and close the loop.

I rooted for Mark Appel to make it. Everyone did. It’s hard not to pull for a guy who got hollowed out by a game he loved, got kicked in the teeth, knocked down, somehow maintained perspective, regrouped, and came back for more. But that’s exactly Appel’s story.

He was assigned to Double-A by the Phillies that season. He pitched well enough to get promoted. In Triple-A he went 5-0 on the mound with a 1.61 ERA in 28 innings. And everyone in baseball braced for what was about to happen.

Do you know where you were on June 29, 2022?

I do. I was on my feet in front of the television in my living room, watching the Phillies-Braves game. Because Mark Appel, for all his troubles, walked to the mound in the ninth inning and pitched in relief against the Atlanta Braves.

Appel was 30 years and 349 days old, the oldest player selected No. 1 overall in the draft to ever reach the majors.

He threw one scoreless inning.

He choked back tears on the mound.

I barely know the guy. My eyes were glassy, watching the scene from Oregon. And I can tell you that that little kid in Arizona and his father must have had tears streaming down their cheeks and been jumping up and down watching “Uncle Mark” become a big league pitcher.

In six appearances in the major leagues, Appel logged a 1.74 ERA. He ended up on the injured list with an elbow injury after that. He was removed from the 40-man roster, and sent back to the minor leagues. He’s out of baseball now, running a business, and taking grad school courses.

That 9-year-old loves baseball. Was it born from watching a family friend wrestle with the game, play Wiffleball in his backyard, then break through in the bigs? Something else? His father’s love of baseball? Innate forces? Proximity to the sport in Arizona? What else? I asked his dad about it on Sunday morning.

The son played soccer when he was younger, then took up Little League. He became a baseball card collector, met a bunch of players in Arizona at spring training and minor league games. He loves following players he collects. He practices nonstop in his backyard and at the local fields and batting cages. And he watches highlights of MLB games and recaps on YouTube.

The kid still plays recreation basketball and flag football for fun, but baseball has become his thing. He’s become a regular fan at the Giants minor league complex when he’s not playing games himself. His father posts Instagram stories showing his son playing and practicing. There are dozens of minor league players who follow the dad on social media, and offer the little guy encouragement.

What’s that?

It takes a village?

You’ve heard that saying. Is that it? Is that how we build kids who love sport? A collective approach? I’m fascinated to see what happens to this little kid. There’s a lot of runway in front of him. How long does he play baseball himself? Where does his love for the game take him? Does he grow up to be a big leaguer? Or just a kid who loved the game, leaned into it during childhood, and ended up as a life-long baseball fan? It’s an ongoing sociological experiment.

I’m intentionally not mentioning the kid or his father by name here because who needs the pressure when you’re that young and the fun is still there. But not that long ago, Josuar Gonzalez, the Giants’ No. 1 prospect, noticed the little kid hanging around the minor league complex.

Memorabilia collectors show up at the stadium early and line up for Gonzalez’s autograph. A lot of them just re-sell it. Gonzalez must have recognized that the kid was just there with his own baseball glove, cheering for players, every game. He must have seen something he recognized in the kid’s eyes.

Joy? Fun? A love of the sport?

Players have occasionally tossed the kid baseballs or given him their wood bats to take home. The kid doesn’t sell any of it. He swings the bats every day, his dad reports. But this one day in particular, Gonzalez took a Bruce Bolt arm sleeve out of his bag and gave it to the 9-year-old.

He wanted him to have it.

I wonder if the kid will ever take it off.

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