By Andrew Cato, ShowMe Times Sports Editor

Sawyer Smith’s got a great outlook on his upcoming sophomore baseball season at Palm Beach Atlantic University following a great campaign in a collegiate wood bat league.


Smith, a 2010 graduate of DHS, spent the summer playing for the Tradewater Pirates in Dawson Springs, Ky., in the Ohio Valley League.

“All in all, it was a good season. It wasn’t the best season that Tradewater has ever had,” he noted, “but we played hard and scratched out some good games.”


The summer league was particularly beneficial for Smith, who had been recovering from a partial tear in his right posterior ulnar collateral ligament. The UCL, most commonly associated with pitchers and the infamous ‘Tommy John’ procedure, is the main ligament in the elbow, and is crucial in the baseball throwing motion. Smith was sidelined with the injury in the spring, and caused him to miss most of his freshman season at PBAU.

“It was good for me, coming off my injury, to get out there and play some games,” Smith said. “I caught 30 games this summer, and I think I did well. I struggled at times, but it was part of finding myself again - I hadn’t played many games in over a year until this summer, and it helped me prepare for the fall and leading up to the spring.”

“My bat was the worst part of my game,” Smith added. “I got some good hits, strung together double-digit hits; it’s tough not seeing a live pitcher for six months.”


Smith lived and breathed baseball all June and July, squeezing close to 50 games in two months.

“I was a freshman this year and only got to play three or four full games. I’d never really played until this summer. We played fifty games of college baseball in less than two months. There were kids from all over the states and all levels of baseball. It was great to see consistent college-level pitching,” Smith said.


 Smith’s college team, the Sailfish, ended the season with a 27-22 record, despite being dealt a crippling blow: their coach, MLB Hall-of-Famer Gary Carter, was diagnosed with aggressive, inoperable brain cancer late in the season.


Smith said he understood the gravity of the situation early in the summer, but noted that Carter has received some great news is August.


 “Coach went to Duke University Medical on August 1st and got a great report on his MRI,” he said. “80% of the cancer is gone. When everything was first brought to light, they weren’t sure if this would be a year long battle before it turned fatal. It was great with all the support and prayers he got - God’s awesome. He answered it a few months later, and he’s 80% cured.”


“He had the most aggressive form of malignant tumors in the brain. When they first diagnosed it, his tumors doubled in size in less than a week, and he started loosing his memory,” Smith added. “It was a tough time for him and his family, but the treatments helped, and again, God’s awesome.”


 “We hope he’ll be able to coach next season,” Smith said. “The school wasn’t sure, so they took some precautionary measures - they hired former Cardinals All-Star Ken Bottenfield as our assistant head coach/pitching coach. He’ll be head coach when Coach Carter has be gone, but when Skip’s back, they'll work together and make our coaching staff that much better.”

Bottenfield, who pitched for the Cardinals during the 1998-1999, posted a 17-8 record with a 3.97 ERA in his only All-Star year, but was traded to the Angels in the Jim Edmonds deal at the end of the ’99 season.

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Make sure to check back with the ShowMe Times for updates on Sawyer as he continues his baseball career with the Sailfish!