BY MARK MORING, Eastern Shore Post —
“Walt Whitman once said, ‘I see great things in baseball. It’s our game. The American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.’ You could look it up.”
Those are the final words of the classic baseball movie “Bull Durham,” which follows a fictional season of the minor league — and nonfictional — Durham Bulls.
Aiden McIntyre, a senior pitcher and shortstop at Nandua High School, also sees great things in baseball, and not just because it’s the game he loves. McIntyre actually has a distant connection to the Bulls.
Not long before “Bull Durham” was released, a young man who grew up in Pax River, Md. — about 55 miles across the Chesapeake Bay, as the gull flies, from McIntyre’s hometown of Onley — actually played for the Bulls.
That man was McIntyre’s great-uncle Allen Sears, a pitcher at Old Dominion who was drafted in 1981 by the Atlanta Braves. Sears never made the majors but played a few years in the minors, including a 1983 stint in Durham — just five years before the film was made.
Sears died before McIntyre was born, “but I’ve heard many stories,” Aiden says. “His parents — my great-great aunt and uncle — have a love for the game and have traveled to many games to support me.”
There must be something in the DNA because McIntyre has turned out to be quite the player himself. He helped carry the Warriors (10-7, 5-1) to a tie for the Eastern District title (with Arcadia), and leads them into next week’s Class 2A Regional Tournament (Regional pairings were released after press time).
“I think we’re peaking at the right time,” he says. “I’m excited to see how far we can go.”
McIntyre’s stats are eye-opening. He has only allowed 17 hits and 7 runs in 50 innings and has a 1.05 ERA with 103 strikeouts. At the plate, he’s hitting .360 with five homers and 25 RBI.
His hitting and pitching prowess were never better than in a 12-4 rout at Arcadia on May 15, avenging an earlier loss to the Firebirds and leaving the two teams tied for the district title. In that game, McIntyre pitched 6.2 innings, allowing just four hits while striking out an astonishing 18 batters. He also drove in enough runs alone to win the game, with two homers and 6 RBI.
“That was one of my best pitching games ever,” he said. “It felt good to get the win since they beat us the last time.”
McIntyre attributes his pitching proficiency to his mid-80s fastball and to his confidence: “I don’t allow myself to be easily shaken,” he says. “If I get down in the count, I just dig in and keep pushing. I stay cool on the mound regardless of the situation.”
He attributes his solid hitting to patience: “I wait for my pitch. I feel like I go deep into a lot of counts during my at-bats.”
The son of Mac and Jennifer McIntyre of Onley, Aiden plans to attend Old Dominion University — just like his great-uncle, his older brother Connor, and a handful of other relatives. He doesn’t know if baseball is in his future, though he plans to try out for the Monarchs as a walk-on.
“I’m not ready to put the glove down for good yet,” he says. “I know it’ll be difficult, but if I don’t try, I will never know. If that doesn’t work out, ODU has club baseball, too.”
Baseball aside, McIntyre has his sights set on the water; he wants to major in marine biology. “I really care about the aquatic environment,” says the straight-A student. “All the stats on pollution and climate change make me curious and motivated to help. I would like to come back to the Shore and apply for jobs in my field.”
But for now, it’s all ball.
“Baseball has been a huge part of my life,” says McIntyre, thanking all the coaches he’s had over the years. “I’ve had the opportunity to play against many different teams in places I never would have visited otherwise and made a lot of friends.
“Baseball has done so much for me on and off the field.”
Except one thing: He’s never seen “Bull Durham.” But he could look it up.
