Why does Barstow have so much baseball talent?
Barstow is rich in Mexican food, pop culture references and Joshua trees.
The small desert town is also somehow rich in baseball tradition.
That tradition was certainly on display during the fifth annual Dino Ebel Baseball Clinic on Jan. 16. I count five people from Barstow currently earning a paycheck from the game and four of them were helping out at the clinic.
The camp’s namesake, Angels bench coach Dino Ebel, was there. So was Blue Jays pitcher Aaron Sanchez. Minor leaguers Amir Garrett and Austyn Willis were there too.
And that’s just some of the talent that’s come from the city.
That fifth person earning a paycheck in baseball is Frank Maldonado, who was scheduled to be at the camp but had to decline at the last minute. Maldonado has been a coach at the collegiate level for more than a decade and recently earned his first head coaching gig with Greensboro College.
And there have been others too. Danny Norman had a five-year career in the Majors in the the late ’70s/early ’80s after playing for Barstow Community College. Matt Mitchell was drafted by the Royals in the 14th round in 2007. He was also helping out at the camp and is attempting to mount a comeback in baseball.
The list goes on and on. As a former Desert Dispatch reporter, I know Barstow takes its baseball seriously. Yet I’m surprised that this much talent has somehow come from a small, isolated town of roughly 23,000 people.
For a random comparison I decided to look up how my high school in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, fared. It doesn't come close. There’s been just one player from Hempfield High School drafted and that was in 1980, according to baseball-reference.com. For some context, my high school has an enrollment of 1,939 to Barstow’s 1,386, according to US New and World Report.
So why does this happen in Barstow? I decided to pose that question Sanchez, Garrett, Willis and Ebel while I was out at the clinic. Here are their thoughts on the matter.
Aaron Sanchez
I think it’s that you come from such a small area. You are always told ‘Barstow? Where’s Barstow? There’s nothing that comes out of there.’ I think for me, I use that as motivation. I think these guys do too. I think we understand what hard work is and what it takes to become who you want to become. That’s not taking anything away from anybody where they are from. We understand that there’s not a lot here. We understand that this is a small town.”
Amir Garrett
Not a lot of people come here for talent. I think it drives us to be even more hungry. You know? There’s talent everywhere. If you play good, people will find you.
Austyn Willis
I’d probably say the location. Especially Southern California, you have access to L.A., San Diego, a lot of scouts like to go down there. Year-round baseball down there. Beautiful weather. It’s given us more opportunities to get down there and play in front of a lot of people, maybe get a little more recognized.
Dino Ebel
There’s something about this town that we are sports lovers. Ever since I was born here, I grew up loving sports. If it was football, if it was baseball, if it was basketball. We’ve always supported it.
I know last night I took my two sons to a basketball game down in Rancho (Cucamonga) because it’s the high school. There something about Barstow that supports their local hometown kids. It’s always been that way, I was born and raised here, and that’s how I was brought up. And now I see the guys that I grew up with have kids and grandchildren and they are doing the same thing. It’s just something we’ve been taught at a young age. I know I have.
It’s a baseball town. It’s always been a baseball town. There’s been a few basketball players that went on and played basketball at colleges, but baseball it seems like has been the hit here. Someday it might be a cycle where there will be a couple football players or a couple basketball guys. Right now it just seems to be baseball. Barstow does a lot of supporting baseball, softball. The Sportspark puts on their thing every year. I just think it runs in cycles.
Also here’s some more photos from the event.
