DeLand High pitcher makes Pan-Am team
Michael Main will compete in Mexico for the USA Baseball Youth National Team.
By Buddy Collings | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted July 14, 2004
DELTONA -- Michael Main has been going places in baseball since he was 9 years old and his parents first drove him from Deltona to Winter Springs for a pitching lesson.
Those early road trips were right around the corner compared to where baseball will take the 15-year-old in September. Main was one of 18 players chosen to the USA Baseball Youth National Team that will compete against other countries in the Pan-Am Championships, Sept. 3-12, in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
That will be the first trip out of the country, but the latest in a growing stack of honors for Main, who gained third-team Class 6A all-state recognition after excelling as a freshman for DeLand High in the high school season.
"Making the U.S. team is the biggest thing that has happened for me so far in baseball," Main said Tuesday. "I felt pretty good that I had a chance to make it, but it was still almost unbelievable when they told us who was on the team. It's really an honor.
"We're younger than the guys going to the Olympics, but we'll have that same feeling. We're representing the United States of America just the same."
Honors have been rolling downhill to Main since his father, Dirk, put together a Central Florida Sun Devils travel team that won a 9-and-under AAU national championship in 1998 and then repeated a year later at 10-and-under nationals. From that foundation has grown a Southeast Select travel team that now includes Main and top 15-and-under players from five different states.
"A lot of people thought we were nuts for starting Michael with pitching lessons when he was only nine," Dirk Main said Tuesday. "But it's just like you might do piano lessons or dance classes. It's just a little newer thing that maybe people weren't used to.
"What it did for Michael is it developed his throwing mechanics at an early age. Those mechanics have just carried over as he got older."
Main is hardly imposing physically at 6 feet 1, 165 pounds. But his fastball was clocked at 92 mph during the USA Baseball team trials at the Oakland Athletics' spring training complex in Phoenix, Ariz.
"I've been clocked at 92 before, but I threw the ball well out there. I felt good," Main said.
His rifle arm, and ability to hit and run, could take him a long way in the sport. Main, who batted .407 for DeLand as a freshman pitcher/outfielder, has already been recognized by Baseball America magazine as one of the premier pro prospects in his age group.
"I hope to play college baseball and make it in the major leagues one day," he said. "It's still a long way away and I know I have a lot of hard work to do. But I love to play. The things I'm doing are exciting."
Making the youth national team is another big step in the right direction.
Main is also playing for DeLand High Coach Ric Sperling with the Bulldogs American Legion "B" team this summer. He chose not to play for the DeLand Post 6 "A" team to free himself for the USA Baseball tryouts.
That process kicked off with Southeast Select placing fourth at the 72-team Junior Olympics East tournament in Jupiter, Fla., last month. From the Junior Olympics, Main was one of 36 players invited to Phoenix for the USA Youth Trials. After a week of practices and games, he made the cut.
"That was really a nervous time when they called us all in and read out the names of the 18 guys who made it," Main said. "I've been playing against the best guys in my age group for awhile, so I know the competition. With the team they've put together, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to win it."
USA Baseball is 40-5 in international competition in the 16-and-under age group, including three consecutive world championships (1998, 2001 and 2003).
Exactly half of the 18-player U.S. team is comprised of Floridians, including one of Main's Southeast Select teammates, infielder John Tolisano of Estero High School in Southwest Florida.
"I'm proud as heck of both of them," Dirk Main said. "They're great kids, both of them."
Michael Main, who earned a weighted 4.3 grade-point average as a ninth-grader in DeLand's international baccalaureate program, is scheduled to fly to Houston on Aug. 27 to meet with the national team. He will miss about about two weeks of school.
"We've talked to the principal (Mitch Moyer) and I.B. counselor (Martha Parissi) at DeLand and they've been tremendously understanding and supportive," Dirk Mains said. "They are making arrangements with teachers."
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