无毛视频

Jul 19, 2024 By Joe Smeltzer 8 min read

Ben Miller remembers his first impression of the young pitcher who’d become his most notable teammate.

Coming into his senior season at Waynesburg University, Miller heard about an incoming freshman baseball pitcher who threw hard and could start right away.

Miller looked forward to catching him during the team’s fall season, and got his chance. He was hoping that first bullpen session would leave an impression, and it did, just not for the reasons Miller was looking for.

“At Waynesburg, our bullpen is pretty tight,” Miller said. “There’s bricks around it. One of Mason’s first pitches, it basically bounced off the bricks next to me. At the upper 80s, which at the D-III level, is humming it.

“So my first impression was basically that I was probably going to get beat up a lot with him on the mound.”

Unfortunately, Mason Miller – no relation to Ben – got beat up a lot on the mound a lot over his first two seasons. He ended his sophomore year with a 5.57 ERA, and later, it was revealed that he had been pitching with Type-1 diabetes, causing him to lose weight.

Well, at this point, many baseball fans know what happened next.

Miller got his diabetes under control, put weight back on, started throwing consistently in the 90s and became the best pitcher in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference, cutting his ERA down by more than three runs and leading the PAC in numerous categories.

So there was plenty of buzz around Miller going into his senior season, to the point where, as former teammate and catcher John Przybylinski remembers, even his warmup sessions became an event.

“Everybody was behind him,” Przyblinski said, “and on the field, he had the entire Waynesburg team looking at him. The team that we were playing, they were all on the field, watching him warm up. All their coaches were watching him warm up. All of our fans, all of their fans, all the eyes were on him, and then there were about five or six scouts standing behind him with radar guns and clipboards. I was the only one facing the opposite direction watching him pitch.

“I’ve never seen an entire stadium watch a kid warm up before a game in that capacity in my life. So that’s right where, in my head, I’m thinking ‘he has a shot to actually do this.'”

It proved to be a pretty good shot.

Although Miller lost most of his senior year to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was given an extra year of eligibility and used it to prove himself at the Division I level at Gardner-Webb.

He showed enough there to go to the Oakland A’s in the third round of the 2021 draft.

Almost exactly three years later, he was chosen to the American League All-Star Team for Tuesday night’s All-StarGame that was played in Arlington, Texas. The game was not over in time for inclusion in this edition.

“The best word to describe everything is surreal,” Przybylinski said.

WALKING HIGHLIGHT REEL

Miller has become one of the best closers in baseball, and is as electrifying as he is effective.

His fastball has reached 104 mph, and he’s used that to dominate some of the best hitters in baseball. He’s been called baseball’s most electric pitcher, and that’s not a term his college teammates would dispute.

“He’s a walking highlight reel,” Przybylinski said. “It seems like he’s doing something special every night.”

The “special” outing that, for many, put Miller on the map as one of the game’s best took place April 22 against the New York Yankees. Nursing a 2-0 lead, Miller came in to close it out.

It wouldn’t be easy.

The Yankees had Anthony Volpe, Juan Soto and Aaron Judge due up. All Miller did was strike out all three.

“That was a point where, if fans didn’t know Mason at that point, that was eye-opening,” said Chris Lee, who caught Miller both at Bethel Park High School and at Waynesburg.

Lee first got to know Miller at Bethel Park, became close with him at Waynesburg, went to North Carolina to visit him and watch him pitch at Gardner-Webb, and now is enjoying his friend becoming a household name.

To see that transformation from high school all the way to now pitching in big league stadiums. It’s an amazing experience for me as a fan of Mason.”

JUST A GOOD PERSON

Miller is described as a humble, laid-back guy with a dry sense of humor that Ben Miller says allows him to shake things off when they go wrong.

A sad truth of sports – and of any other field, really – is that success changes people. For all of its perks, achieving fame can make a humble person become arrogant, a hard-worker become lazy and someone known for making good decisions make poor ones.

That hasn’t happened with Miller, and those who know him don’t expect it to.

“To the public eye, I feel like he’s carrying himself like an all-star, best closer in the game,” Przybylinski said. “But on a personal level, absolutely not. He’s the same dude. We talk about the same stuff. He gives me some good insight; he still asks how I’m doing. A lot of people get into that position and they easily forget about everybody who led them to that point. But not (Mason).”

Although Miller’s busy schedule and him living across the country in a different time zone can make communication difficult, he still keeps in touch with Przybylinski, Lee and Ben Miller.

Miller’s humility sticks out to Lee, who remembers Miller’s work away from the field at Waynesburg, where he took part in plenty of service projects,

“He was always volunteering in his free time,” Lee said. “He’s always about other people, even though things are busy and hectic in his life. At that point, we were practicing three hours a day or so and having games and doubleheaders. He was always true to going in and volunteering and doing things to help other people.”

For Ben Miller, the fact that Mason Miller has stayed true to himself might be more impressive than anything he’s done on the mound.

“Obviously, throwing 104 is insane,” he said. “But throwing 104 and going from D-III Waynesburg to probably the biggest name in baseball for a couple weeks and still being the same person speaks volumes to him and his family. He’s just a good person.”

BIG STAGE

Perry Cunningham, who was Miller’s pitching coach in Waynesburg and is now the Yellow Jackets’ head coach, summed it up well.

“You have to have confidence about yourself that you’re going to do well, but that confidence often changes or turns into arrogance and some guys become almost intolerable to be around. I’m certain that Mason’s not going to turn into that.”

Cunningham knows that, odds are, he’ll never coach another player that reaches the heights Miller has reached. But he also knows that Miller pitching most of his college career in Greene County won’t hurt the program, either.

“It’s certainly given us some positive notoriety,” Cunningham said. “When recruits come through our doors, if any of them have done research on Waynesburg University, most of them are aware that Mason came here, was a graduate of here. I think it’d be unfair for us to tell a kid ‘you can be the next Mason Miller.’ I don’t know how realistic that is, but I hope that it also proves that we have an idea of what we’re talking about.”

Cunningham knew that Tuesday night would be a great night for Waynesburg.

“As a Waynesburg University Yellow Jacket, I think it’ll be a great day for all of our guys,” he said before the game. “Whether they played with Mason, played before Mason or are current guys, it’ll be a great day to be a Jacket.

“Knowing him the way that I know him, I know that stage isn’t going to be too big for him.”

Lee will feel plenty of pride, both for his friend and his alma mater.

“For him, it’s a great accomplishment,” Lee said. “I’m happy for him regardless of how he does.”

Ben Miller was hoping to see Mason Miller dominate some of the league’s best, which he’s already done multiple times this season.

“I just want him to go out there, try to pitch 105, throw some sliders and have fun,” he said.