Jun. 7—Since he picked up a bat and a glove for the first time, Anthony Wayne’s Garret Pike has always had baseball on his mind.
While he excelled as the quarterback for the Generals on the football field and was a key contributor in basketball, he always prioritized baseball above all else.
Pike has developed into a feared hitter through repetition of his left-handed swing that allows him to hit for average while still packing a punch at the plate. Pike’s family barn was transformed into a batting cage his freshman year, and even after a long day of football or basketball, he always found time to get in his swings.
“During my other seasons, I always stay in tune with baseball,” Pike said. “My dad would always throw to me in the cage, and I would try to get in there and try to swing every single day.”
The dedication paid off for Pike this year as he was named the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association Division I player of the year and will play baseball at the University of Toledo next season.
Pike’s commitment to the sport coupled with his uncommon athletic ability propelled the senior to the top of the Northern Lakes League in batting.
This season, Pike hit .534 with nine home runs, 53 RBIs, 45 runs, and 10 stolen bases.
Pike credits some of the evolution of his swing to the work he did with former MLB manager Tom Runnells leading up to his sophomore and junior seasons.
“He has a ton of experience at the professional level, and he helped me with driving the ball to the opposite field and not getting jammed up,” Pike said. “I did two hitting sessions with him and it really just took off from there.”
While Pike has continued developing as a hitter, with an appendix injury to Wright State commit Ty Roder, Pike found himself as the leader of the pitching rotation for Anthony Wayne this season.
While he hasn’t had a ton of time to hone his craft on the mound, Pike’s numbers this year did not show that as he went 8-2 with a 1.48 ERA in 47 1/3 innings.
“He was an athlete pitching,” Anthony Wayne coach Mark Nell said. “He was never afraid of taking the ball, and he was a competitor.”
Jordan Nell, an assistant coach at Anthony Wayne, said spending time at practices and off the field with Pike gave him a better understanding of what the senior meant to the team.
“He was the heart of our team this year,” Jordan Nell said. “I think the part that went unnoticed or people don’t realize about him is how unbelievable he was just bringing everybody together, especially our younger players. He really brings a calmness to everybody around him in some of the stressful situations — on and off the field. He just found a way to put an ease to everybody else that was around him.”
In 2018 as a freshman, Pike was one of the junior varsity players called up to the varsity roster during the Generals’ postseason run to the state finals.
As an understudy to talented shortstop Andrew Murphy, Pike got a taste of what it took to be successful at the varsity level.
“When he stepped on the baseball field as a freshman, I knew he was going to be good, not because he had a good swing and had some tools, it was more his approach, his coachability, his attitude, and his enthusiasm,” Mark Nell said. “You could tell we had something special there.”
Pike always put in the work to develop as a baseball player, but the ability to focus solely on baseball leads Nell to believe he could take off as a college player.
“To be able to mentally focus on baseball from here on out, it’s kind of scary how much he’s going to develop,” Mark Nell said. “I’m looking forward to it. From the left side, with his instincts, and the way he can run and throw, the University of Toledo got a great player. They got a steal.”
Before playing in college, Pike says he would like to work on shortening his swing so that it is quicker through the zone to compensate for the spike in velocity he will likely see in college.
Toledo coach Rob Reinstetle said Pike’s bat stood out in the recruiting process, and the Rockets identified him as a high priority.
“He’s super athletic,” Reinstetle said. “He pitched, he played shortstop, but the bat is going to be a key piece for us. That’s what really attracted us to him was the bat. He has a lot of good things that we value here. He’s going to grow and put on weight and strength, which is only going to make the bat play better. He played short in high school, but if he continues to grow and fill out, he could be a power-hitting third baseman for us.”
Reinstetle coached the Mid-American Conference player of the year, Chris Meyers, this season and he believes Pike could have a similar career path for the Rockets.
“I think he is a phenomenal baseball player and really is just a great all-around kid,” Reinstetle said. “He’s done everything right both on and off the field, which is something we value in this process. When you lose a guy like Chris Meyers who has all those intangibles — he was a model student, was a model person in the community, and was a hell of a baseball player — I think Garret is right in line with him. I’m not trying to compare them or say he’s going to do what Chris has done in his career at Toledo, but it would not surprise me if he did.”
First Published June 6, 2021, 3:18pm