One day, you finish in the top-15 in hits, home runs and stolen bases in the same league that Manny Ramirez once played in. Three months later, you’re a freshman at Binghamton University and realize while trying to walk on to a Division-I baseball team: it’s a whole new ballgame.
It wasn’t that Sammy Martinez, an outfielder from the Bronx’s John F. Kennedy High School, didn’t show promise. Rather, to successfully make a D-I baseball team as an unrecruited freshman, you need to find the eye of the storm.
“Sammy made it about as far as anyone has made it,” said BU baseball head coach Tim Sinicki.
The baseball team can carry a maximum of 28 players, including redshirts and players who may sit a whole year due to injuries. Spots become available for walk-ons only if the team does not recruit enough players to replace those who depart and, even then, Sinicki does not have to carry the maximum if he thinks those walk-ons won’t improve his team.
“A guy has got to be ready for me in some capacity to throw him into a Division-I game to have some level of success in some area,” Sinicki said.
An athletic 6-foot-1, 210 pounds, Martinez features an all-around game highlighted by a strong arm, having pitched in high school. Sinicki felt Martinez was a raw but nonetheless able talent and kept him on the team for several months. Then, right before Thanksgiving break, Martinez had to be let go — not because he wasn’t performing well, but because the team had a more pressing need for a catcher.
“Because of the way we were prioritizing things, we no longer felt we had the need for a walk-on outfielder, so we shifted our attention really to a midyear catcher,” Sinicki said.
It was a tough break for Martinez, but the odds were against him the whole time.
“I had to push my game up more just to see the light a little bit,” Martinez said.
Martinez will have to keep working towards the light, a task that won’t be any easier as a sophomore, Sinicki warns, because this season is lost time. Regardless, a confident Martinez will play summer-ball in New York City and try again next year to earn the spot he knows is within reach.
“I’m gonna get in much better shape than I was last time,” Martinez said. “Maybe I took it too easy, but I still felt like at that rate I was at I could’ve been on the team. What I’m doing now is pushing it up a whole notch. I’m gonna bring speed, power — just everything.”
Unfortunately, as a non-recruit, “everything” isn’t always enough.