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Love of the game reclaimed

When a grandmother's illness and college pressures sidetracked Monte Ketchum, some good advice and a simple shot off the bat got him back on track.

By DAVID MURPHY
Published March 12, 2006

As Monte Ketchum strode to the plate in the first inning of Hernando's intracounty matchup against Nature Coast on Tuesday, his grandmother lay in a hospital bed across town, a hospice nurse by her side, cancer beckoning her final days.

As Ketchum dug into the batter's box, hundreds of college coaches across the country went blissfully about their business, unaware of the kid, unaware of the swing, unaware of the desire that's long lurked within him.

And as Ketchum watched the first strike sail past him, as he heard the thwat of the catcher's mitt and as he saw the outfielders in the distance remain motionless, eight games of frustration and emotion and pressure lingered silently in the purple night air.

Then it happened. The pitcher wound up. The ball froze. And Ketchum swung.

He's almost enough to make you feel insecure, this Monte Ketchum character. Not the ability, though he's got enough to share. Not the mind, though it is as sharp as a metal spike. Not the .390 he hit as a junior, or the six home runs he launched, or the fact he did it all with a smile.

Nope. It's more of a combination of these things, the way in which he puts them all together, the aura those around him always have felt.

"He's just a tremendous kid," says Beth Pritz, whose son, David, is a star wrestler at Hernando and best friend of the Leopards' slugger. "When you meet the kid, he is very sure of himself. He always has a smile on his face, and he is extremely bright. He's just an all around great kid. That's all you can say about Monte."

That's all anybody can seem to say about Monte. Though Ketchum hit 18 home runs in a single Dixie League season while playing for Cliff Manuel, the biggest attribute the coach remembers is his leadership.

Opposing coach Bill Korn talks about the year the Hernando Youth League started a sportsmanship award, an honor typically reserved for kids whose trophy cases aren't exactly stocked.

But when it came time to hand it out, the only option was a kid who already was bigger, faster and more talented than his peers.

"He always carried more maturity than the other boys," said Korn, whose son Jared plays for Hernando.

Searching for a pockmark on Ketchum is like looking for a wrinkle in Ryan Seacrest's pants.

Take Ketchum's Friday night plans.

After facing Springstead in a baseball game, he planned on rushing home, hopping in a car with a couple of friends and heading down to Tampa.

A hot date? A party?

Nope. Acquire the Fire - an event for Christian youths.

"It's very important to me," Ketchum says of his faith. "That's who I am."

That and baseball.

His was the typical American childhood, with the typical American dream. He moved to Brooksville from Clearwater with his family at 10. And almost from the moment he arrived, he began plotting his future as a ballplayer.

Fred McGriff was his idol, and Ketchum's father was his mentor. Monte Sr. rigged a contraption designed to hone his son's swing, and every day the two would work together: Monte Sr. holding the stick with the string and ball attached, and Monte Jr. taking cut after cut.

Every time Monte Jr. had a youth league game, Monte Sr. would leave his pest control business early, take his son to the field and work on his hitting before the game.

"Before games, after games, before practice after practice ... They were always working," Manuel says.

Two years ago, when Hernando was getting rid of its old batting cage, Monte Sr. brought it home and erected it behind the house.

"My dad's been my biggest supporter," Ketchum says.

His grandmother also helped.

She and her husband, Bill, had originated the family exodus from Clearwater, and as Monte Jr. grew up, she was a constant presence at his games.

"She's always been there yelling and cheering me on and stuff," Ketchum says, "Baseball is our family sport. My grandpa played growing up, and she loves it."

Growing up, Monte Jr. watched Hernando star and current Washington Nationals minor-leaguer Dee Brown take the county by storm and dreamed of the day when he would, too.

That day came quickly.

After making a name for himself as a youth-leaguer, Ketchum spent one year on Hernando's junior varsity before stepping into the varsity's starting lineup as a sophomore.

"The best thing about Monte is he came in with a little bit of hype - if you can have hype at a young age - but he never came in wanting or expecting anything," Hernando junior varsity coach Jeff Laing says. "He's really been someone who works at his craft."

Heading into his senior season, though, Ketchum had yet to receive the fruits of that labor. His dream of playing collegiately, and eventually professionally, remained intact, yet the only interest he had received from Division I coaches came by way of a few form letters.

Blue-chippers don't get letters that begin, "Dear prospective student-athlete ... "

"I knew I needed to go out and have a good year to get scouted and stuff," Ketchum says.

That knowledge led to a heavy dose of early-season frustration. Ketchum was not relaxed at the plate. Every time he walked to the batter's box, he did so with the intention of knocking a fastball into the Gulf of Mexico.

Furthermore, before the season, he found out his grandmother had inoperable lung cancer. The doctors gave her six months, then three months, then weeks to live.

She stopped coming to his games. And college scouts did not take her place.

So Ketchum pressed. And he stressed. And he struggled.

A year after slugging six home runs, his total after eight games stood at zero.

"I was pressuring myself to hit bombs and stuff," he says. "But you can't do that."

The change came a couple of weeks ago, when Hernando school resource officer Bill Pope pulled Ketchum aside after a game.

"He said, "Dude, you're not even having fun out there,' " Ketchum says. "He said, "Just go out and have fun.' "

So that's what Ketchum did. Lo and behold, the hits started coming. A single here, a double there, a little solid contact ... no home runs, but the fun was back.

A couple of days before the Nature Coast game, Ketchum was at his grandmother's side. The prognosis had dropped to a matter of days.

Monte Jr. told his Nana goodbye. And he told her something else.

"I told her, "I'm going to hit a home run for you,' " Ketchum says.

There is a moment that every hitter lives for: that sugar-sweet feeling when bat meets ball, and ball meets bat, and the forearm follows through, and the body torques, and the eyes rise to watch a streak of white disappearing into the spring night.

The pitch that Ketchum drilled out of the park that night was not unlike a lot of others he has crushed. But the trip around the bases was.

He did not know it at the time, but his two-run shot over the wall in right-center would prove to be the deciding factor in a 6-4 game.

And as he touched first and second and third, caramel dirt flying in his wake, the frustrations of an early season, the pressures of a college search, and the promise to his grandmother finally seemed to blend in perfect harmony.

His future is still unsettled. He is sending out tapes, working contacts, waiting by the phone. He'd love to play D-I, and plans on getting his engineering degree.

But whatever happens, Monte Ketchum is again having fun.

"That's what I play for," the senior said as he leaned back in a metal bleacher before practice last week. "It's the best feeling in the world."

[Last modified March 12, 2006, 01:18:21]