Spalding University baseball star Jacob Spanyer was an All-Conference performer the last two seasons. But, the impact of the game goes beyond the diamond for the super senior.
“Hit a home run for me.”
Every athlete has a game, or games, in their careers that they will remember forever. Whether it be a career performance or a meaningful moment, it’s something that will never escape their memories.
For me, both of those things came in the same weekend.
The final regular-season week of my junior regular season at Spalding University is a week I will never forget. That week started with me driving to Cincinnati with my mom and my brother to visit my grandpa in the hospital on Monday.
A few years prior, he was diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, which is a rare, chronic disease that causes scarring in the lungs. Because of this, he had an extremely hard time breathing and spent most of his days on a heavy dose of oxygen.
We spent a couple of hours with him that day, and during our visit, he mentioned that it was always his dream to play college baseball, he had just never gotten the opportunity to. I didn’t know these things about him previously, so it was really cool to me that he told me that and that I was living out his dream in a way. I felt as if there was a whole new meaning to my career.
When we were getting ready to leave, my mom told me that she had planned to come back to Cincinnati for the weekend and to watch the stream of our upcoming games with him in the hospital. This meant a great deal to me because he hadn’t seen me play since junior year of high school, especially with the newfound knowledge that it was his dream to be a college baseball player.
When we left the hospital, the last thing he said to me, was ultimately the last words he ever told me:
“I love you, hit a home run for me.”
I left for St. Louis with the team on that Friday, and what followed was a weekend I will never forget.
In the first game, I started off without a hit in my first two at-bats. But my entire weekend changed in the top of the fifth inning when I hit a deep fly ball off of the left field wall for a double.
The magic truly started in the top of the seventh when on the second pitch that I saw in the at-bat, I hit a high fastball over the wall in center for a home run. I remember being in shock as I rounded the bases. Not because I hadn’t done it before, but because I’ve never told anyone that I would hit one for them. The fact that I was able to do that blew my mind a little. When I got back in the dugout, I told one of our guys that my grandpa was watching and he gave me a hug and told me “more to come.”
In the second game of that series, I picked up right where I left off. I came up to bat in the top of the first and the very first pitch that I saw I turned on an inside fastball and took it over the right center wall for another home run. I ended up tallying another two hits that game, a double to right and a single to left. I finished the double header that day 5-9, with two homers, two doubles, and a single, and it only got better the next day.
I started off game three with a double down the left-field line in the top of the first inning. Then, hit a single in the top of the fifth.
That’s when the boys got hot.
We batted around that inning, and my spot came back up with two outs and a runner on first. I got down 1-2 in the count and then fouled off three straight pitches. The seventh pitch of the at-bat came in and I hit what felt like a pop-out to the center fielder. There must’ve been some sort of magic in the air that weekend because I thought that ball had no chance of going out. When I saw the center fielder sprinting back to the wall I couldn’t believe it.
The ball just barely escaped the yard, and I rounded the bases for the third time on the weekend.
I ended up hitting another single in the top of the sixth to finish the day 4-5. For the weekend I went 9-14, with three singles, three doubles, three home runs, and 9 Rbi’s, and on top of that, we won all three games and outscored our opponent 45-12 on the weekend.
That was easily the best baseball I have played in my entire life and to be able to do it in his honor when I knew he was watching is something I will cherish forever. As I have mentioned in a previous article, I honor my career as a whole to my dad, but to have a specific weekend where it was dedicated to someone and to come through and play my best baseball ever- that’s a feeling of happiness that I will never forget.
My grandpa passed away just a few weeks later, and I will always cherish the fact that I gave him something to be proud of in his final weeks.
