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Baseball pitcher Austin Bass, a native of Melrose, is pictured playing for the University of North Carolina at Pembroke Braves. -
Austin Bass and his brother, Morgan Bass, are pictured as young Melrose baseball players. -
Austin Bass, as a Keystone Heights High School baseball player, stands with his family. -
Melrose coach Austin Bass, right, teaches young baseball players proper pitching techniques in December at the Melrose Sports Complex. -
Positively Putnam FL
A lifelong Melrose baseball player is bringing his pitching skills back to his hometown in the hopes of helping young baseball players succeed.
For the longest time, Austin Bass said, he was known primarily for his baseball skills. But after a high school injury, playing in college and hitting a snag in the pros thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bass is back in Melrose and teaching young players.
“My main focus here and the reason why I’m, you know, devoting my time … is to really (give) the knowledge, help with correct pitching skills,” Bass said. “It’s to develop good mechanics so that kids do not go through what I went through.”
Brought up on baseball
The 24-year-old said he started swinging a bat as a toddler and later began playing in the Melrose Youth Sports Association.
He and his brother even traveled to baseball camps, where they learned from players like Kevin Maris, the son of famous New York Yankees player Roger Maris, and Boston Red Sox player John Bagonzi.
“I had a lot of insight … and I really took that,” Bass said. “I built off of it and I became a great baseball player from that.”
Dale Yarborough, who is in his 24th year of coaching with the association, said Bass is no stranger to him.
Yarborough said Bass started playing T-ball for him at 4, and he coached the former association player from 2002 to 2013. Yarborough praised Bass for taking baseball seriously as a child but still knowing how to have fun with it.
“He’s a good boy. He’s fun to coach,” Yarborough said.
When he hit high school, Bass was a pitcher who later transferred from Interlachen High School to Keystone Heights High School. During his freshman year, Bass said, he made a spoken agreement to play baseball at the University of Florida.
Then, an ulnar collateral ligament tear put a stop to his plans, he said.
The tear caused Bass to need what’s commonly known as “Tommy John surgery,” according to John Hopkins Medicine. The surgery is performed to fix a torn ulnar collateral ligament located inside the elbow, the agency says, and was first performed on MLB pitcher Tommy John in the 1970s.
The surgery often causes players to sit out for a year or longer, and that was the case for Bass. On top of having the surgery, Bass said, he ended up having blood clots in his lungs.
“I spent like a month in the (intensive care unit) fighting for my life,” he said.
He lost all of his college commitments and did not return to playing baseball until his senior year of high school.
“It was an emotional rollercoaster ride,” Bass said about returning to the field again as a senior. “When I had my Tommy John’s surgery, (there) was a 50% chance of ever throwing a baseball again.”
Despite the setbacks, Bass received a full ride to play baseball for Santa Fe State College and eventually moved on to play at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
He entered the draft through the Boston Red Sox following his one year playing at UNC, but his season got cut short because of the pandemic.
That hasn’t stopped Bass from teaching young Melrose baseball players everything he knows. It’s what Bass enjoys doing, and he currently works with 36 students, he said.
Sharing the knowledge
As the sun set over the Melrose Sports Complex in December, Bass coached two students – a 13-year-old and an 8-year-old – on the baseball fields.
“It’s an incredible feeling because I am living through these kids and, you know, I enjoy what I do,” Bass said about being back.
The former Melrose player coaches local youth from the ages of 8 to 18 on pitching every day. He not only gives pitching lessons, but the sports association has Bass coaching his own team, Yarborough said.
Bass said he uses his coaching to help, and because he’s younger, he believes he can get through to the players in ways other coaches or parents may not.
“My biggest thing when I meet with a new kid is, ‘I’m not your dad, right?’ I’m a baseball player. I’m a pitcher,” Bass said.
Even at a young age, kids can learn how to use their legs for better pitching techniques, work on good baseball mechanics and train at home. Growing up, Bass said, his family didn’t have much money, but he worked with a fishing net in the ground he would use for pitching practice.
He hopes parents will encourage their children if they want to play baseball. He encourages young players to lead a healthy lifestyle, get outside as often as they can, keep their bodies active and limber, and not hide any signs of soreness from coaches.
He also advises they not use weighted balls to practice pitching because it strains muscles, especially for a younger kid, and suggests using heat after icing an injury because the heat relaxes the muscle.
Too much icing as a child, he warned, could cause inflammation. He advised young pitchers to ice for five to seven minutes and then heat their tendons and ligaments.
“We’re learning from him,” Yarborough said Monday while at the sports complex coaching just across the way from Bass. “He knows his stuff.”
Bass charges $55 an hour for lessons, where players will learn arm care, velocity, good mechanics and pitching development, he said. Bass can be reached at facebook.com/austin.bass.33.
“I understand that, you know, getting a personal trainer, getting some … athletic trainer is expensive,” Bass said. “So, I’m here to help those kids that want to go far, that want to go to college.”