There are so many lessons in this story. Great read.
Never give up
Work hard
Take control of your recruiting process
Go where they have a plan for you
it's not the level but where you can play
Continue to work hard with setbacks
Have a coach who believes in you
Take care of your body
Some luck always helps
chicagotribune.com
Cut from New Trier's team, Ben Klimesh works his way through Reds' farm system
CAPTIONBen Klimesh
Hal Yeager, Photo for the Chicago Tribune
Pitcher Ben Klimesh of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos during a game against the Birmingham Barons at Region's Park in Birmingham, Ala.
Pitcher Ben Klimesh of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos during a game against the Birmingham Barons at Region's Park in Birmingham, Ala.
By John CarpenterChicago Tribunecontact the reporter
Ben Klimesh: "I remember walking home and, you know, crying."
All Ben Klimesh ever wanted was to be a big-league ballplayer. So there was a twinge, even eight years later, as he looked back to the day he was cut from his high school team.
"I remember walking home and, you know, crying," the 6-foot-4 right-hander from Wilmette said. "You're a junior in high school. Making the varsity team is your whole life."
He paused to eat some of his breakfast, a pile of scrambled eggs and bacon with whole wheat toast, leaving the greasy potatoes untouched on his plate. Apparently big league pitching prospects don't eat the greasy potatoes on game day. And Klimesh's Louisville Bats were scheduled to take on the Pawtucket Red Sox, Boston's AAA farm team, that night.
That's right. Told in 2007 that he wasn't good enough to play for the New Trier varsity, Klimesh is now working his way through in the Cincinnati Reds' farm system, a powerful right-hander who can touch the high 90s with his fastball.
Still, "big league prospect" is a job title with an expiration date. You either cash it in for a ticket to the show, or you leave it with the front desk on your way out the door for the long trip home to the rest of your life.
And Klimesh, 25, and hasn't made it yet.
But that's not the point.
The kid still plays baseball every night, and he does it with guys who were the stars of their high school teams, maybe even the best kids to ever come out of their hometowns.
Kids who get cut as high school juniors usually stay cut, drifting over to beer-league softball at some point before dusting off the old mitt a decade or two later to coach their kids in little league.
Klimesh wiped those tears away by the time his dad got home from work that night. They way he saw it, he wasn't out yet. He was in a rundown.
"I asked my dad to take me to the Strike Zone that night," he said, referring to the indoor practice facility in Glenview where he often worked out. "I got my throwing in. I knew I wasn't done."
Mike Napoleon wasn't so sure. New Trier's head baseball coach knew Klimesh well. He was the same age as Napoleon's son, and the coach liked him.
"I used to drive him to school," Napoleon remembered.
But that didn't carry any water when it came to picking players at New Trier, a strong baseball program at a school with more than 4,200 students. Napoleon said Klimesh wasn't cutting it as a third baseman and hadn't yet grown into the power pitcher he would become.
And he was trying to make a very, very good team.
"That group went 30 and 3," Napoleon said. "We won the state championship the next year."
Lisle Klimesh, Ben's father, said Napoleon called him on cut-down day.
Pitcher Ben Klimesh of the Pensacola Blue Wahoos during a game against the Birmingham Barons at Region's Park in Birmingham, Ala.
(Hal Yeager, Photo for the Chicago Tribune)
"I was on a business trip in Omaha and he called me. He said: 'I've got some bad news. Ben's not going to make the varsity.'" Klimesh said. "I knew he was going to be crushed."
What he didn't know was that that evening would begin one of his proudest memories as a parent.
"Of all the things he's accomplished, getting drafted, playing in college, the proudest time I had with Ben was when all his friends that he played baseball with for years were playing on the varsity, and he was going to the Strike Zone every day, working on his stuff," the older Klimesh said. "I never thought about him giving it up. He loved it too much."
Phil Apostle runs the Academy Elite Baseball program, a Glenview-based squad of travel teams that now play as the Homestead Ranchers, but were known then as the Chicago Jacks. He quickly added Klimesh to the Jacks roster.
"When he was cut from that high school team, it was absolutely shocking," Apostle said. "He had huge hands, huge feet, and a huge heart."
Klimesh pitched for the Jacks, and worked out over the winter. It paid off quickly, as he pulled off the rare feat by trying out again as a senior and making the New Trier team, this time as a pitcher.
Not that it mattered.Napoleon said Klimesh was still "emerging. I think he threw 20 innings. He struggled with consistency."
Maybe, Klimesh said. But he didn't get much of a chance.
"They didn't use me. Then, one day, they told me I was starting, and the coach pulled me aside and said this was my chance. If I pitched well, I'd be one of their guys."
He didn't pitch well.
He also didn't give up, again.
Once again Klimesh turned to summer travel teams for the valuable innings he needed to build his arm strength. As his fastballs climbed into the high 80s at weekend tournaments, people began to notice.
"He was a monster at those tournaments," Apostle said. "He was like a folk hero. People would walk over to our games and watch him."
Division 1 scouts noticed, and began to ask questions.
"I got some calls," Klimesh said. "Then they'd find out I was cut from the high school team, and they stopped calling. I kind of had to recruit myself."
He recruited himself straight to Division 3 Trinity University, in San Antonio, Texas, his mother's alma mater. They gave him the ball. And when he pitched poorly, they gave it to him again.
When he pitched poorly again, they gave it to him again.
"They allowed me to struggle on the mound, and that's where you learn the most as a pitcher, when you struggle," he said. "You get beat up. The hitters tell you real quick if things are working or not. I was allowed to struggle that first year. I don't remember what my ERA was, but it wasn't good."
It was 8.54, to be exact, with 30 walks in 34 innings.
But by the time he was a senior, Klimesh said "it all began to click." He lead the nation in strikeouts by a Division 3 pitcher with 154 in 110 innings pitched. He was a Division 3 All-American.
It was a good feeling, but one he said he never would have felt had he gone to a Division 1 school. Trinity, he said, gave him the chance to fail, and to get back up.
"I never would have matured as much as I was able to at Trinity, as a pitcher on the mound," he said. "I never would have gotten all those innings."
Another benefit?
"I learned how to maintain a healthy, strong arm," he said.
By the time draft day arrived in 2012, Klimesh was back in Wilmette and too nervous to sit and watch his computer. He drove around town.
"When I saw my phone light up with text messages, I knew I got picked," he said.
He was taken by the Reds in the 15th round, and signed immediately. A bonus was out of the question, given his draft position and the fact that he was a graduating senior with no leverage. He headed for Montana to join the Billings Mustangs of the Pioneer League. It was rookie ball, and it was where he got his first taste of life as a young professional baseball player.
He, ahem, enjoyed himself.
"We played in some fun towns in that league," he said. "You're getting your first paycheck, and you start going out and having fun with your teammates. That starts showing up on your statistics. That was a good learning experience. I realized, 'This isn't a party. It's a job."
He also started learning from the veteran big leaguers who were his pitching coaches, guys like Tony Fossas and Tom Browning. Fossas taught him to fight for his life; Browning to not give the hitters too much credit.
He learned another lesson, albeit indirectly, from his childhood baseball hero, former Cubs ace Mark Prior.
Discouraged to be stuck in extended spring training in 2013 after all the big leaguers broke camp, Klimesh was surprised to see Prior there also. Prior, never fully recovered from elbow surgery in 2007, surprised everyone by making a bid for a comeback that year. Klimesh said he googled Prior's name, and found an interview he'd just given in which he said it was nothing more than love for the game that was motivating him this time.
"It gave me a sense of gratefulness," Klimesh said. "Just play the game! No matter what level I'm at, I'm just glad I can go out there, put a uniform on and pitch. I think that saved the season for me."
From there it was on to the Dayton Dragons, the Reds' single-A farm team, where he pitched well and earned a bump to Bakersfield, in high-A ball. He started there in 2014, and earned another bump to the AA Pensacola Blue Wahoos, where he started this season before being called up to AAA Louisville.
He was there almost a month before he got sent back down to Pensacola, where's he just went on the 7-day disabled list with a strained neck. It's another in a series of setbacks that don't seem to knock him off course.
"He's disappointed," Lisle Klimesh said. "But he's OK. He just lost the strike zone (in Louisville). He's working on it."
Doug Gray, editor of RedsMinorLeagues.com, said Klimesh struggled with control in Louisville. He'll get more work in Pensacola, Gray said.
Asked about his chances to make the big leagues, Gray said he likes them.
"He's definitely got the arm, so he's got a chance," he said. "Can I see him as a seventh inning guy in the big leagues? Absolutely."
Gray said the clock is ticking, but "it's not unusual for guys like him to get their shot at 26 or 27."
As for Klimesh, he doesn't have a back-up plan.
"Absolutely not," he said. "I know I'll be fine. I've got my degree, so why would I think about that? All I'm thinking about is making it to the major leagues."
Lisle Klimesh isn't worried either.
"He knows what he wants, and he works very hard at it. He's very honest about what he needs to do to improve, and he can take failure and move on," the elder Klimesh said. "We really haven't talked about what he'd do. He's all in."
