Lynn English graduate and Colorado Rockies draftee Ben Bowden speaks to a group of Babe Ruth fall baseball players. Photo by Bob Roche
By Steve Krause
LYNN — It doesn’t seem like a long time ago that Ben Bowden was 15 and pitching for the Greater Lynn Babe Ruth organization in the Eastern Mass. final in Plymouth.
His all-stars lost that game, but the experience only whetted his appetite for the game of baseball. He went on to star at Lynn English, pitching a perfect game against Marblehead during his junior season, and winning the Gatorade Player of the Year award.
His star kept rising at Vanderbilt where, as a freshman, his Commodores won the College World Series. A year later, they were in the finals again, this time falling to South Carolina.
In June, upon the completion of his junior season, he was drafted in the second round by the Colorado Rockies organization (45th overall) and sent to Asheville, N.C., to pitch for the franchise’s rookie league team, the Tourists.
Saturday, home for a few days before getting set to drive his new pickup truck to Arizona for the fall instructional league, he returned to his roots to offer some words of wisdom for the current crop of Lynn Babe Ruth players.
“You’re at a time when baseball is still fun,” he said. “I remember when I was 15, we had a great team. There was a lot of talent on it. And it was fun to be around it.
“Now, I still love baseball,” he said, “but I’m involved with the business side of it now. You’re told where to go, what to do, and how to do it.”
But make no mistake. He still has the same love for the game now that he had when he was 12.
“I remember,” said Babe Ruth board member Jeff Earp, “managing the Gallant team in Lynn and looking for guys who could pitch, and who had good stuff. I came to Ben, and he said to me, ‘I got stuff.’ I’ll never forget that.”
Bowden still has stuff, obviously. He said he got up to 97 on the radar gun this year, and that his fastball is his best pitch. But, he said, one of the big differences between being in college and being at the next level is “everybody can hit. In college, you may have people who can mash the ball, but once you get up to the next level, everybody can hit.
“And,” he said, “there are an awful lot of people who can turn around a 97-mph fastball if it’s flat.”
In 26 appearances in Asheville, Bowden had a 3.04 earned run average and struck out 29 as a short reliever.
“I pitched mostly the seventh and eighth innings,” he said. “I did all right. I had a stretch where I wasn’t pitching all that well, but I re-evaluate things, like mechanics, and ended up OK.”
Pro ball been an adjustment in other ways too. Bowden said that in college, sitting out in the bullpen, he enjoyed being a ‘bench jockey.’
“I’d get on the other team, the other team’s pitcher stuff like that,” he said. “Up here, you don’t do that, and I was told that pretty quickly.”
For now, he told the players who had gathered at the Breed Middle School complex to play fall ball, just enjoy the game and be grateful that there are people who are dedicated to coaching them and running the league.
“I don’t think I’d be where I am today if it weren’t for the people who coached me all the way up the line.”
He won’t be seeing too much of Lynn in the coming months. After going to Arizona, he’ll be home for the holidays and then it’ll be off to Nashville to get ready for spring training in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“You’re at a time now when it’s the most fun,” he told the young 13-, 14- and 15-year-old boys. “Treat it like it’s fun.”
But at the same time, he said, understand that nobody gets anywhere without hard work.
“You take that team that went to the World Series (last month),” he said. “I’ll bet there were teams out there with kids who may have had more talent than these kids did, but these kids worked hard and became a team. That’s what you have to do.”