Memorial’s Vincent Trapani

WINTER BALL Memorial pitcher Vincent Trapani using next-gen training to prep for spring d

By Aaron Rose

Mark Trapani was standing beside the ballpark in Mauston in the fall of 2014 when a man approached him to compliment his son, Vincent, on his pitching. “Your son has a special talent,” Mark recalled the man saying.

“Ya, if he was left handed we’d be making plans for his future,” Mark replied jokingly.

“No,” the man replied, “you’ll make plans regardless.”

When that man, James Wambach, a former professional ballplayer in the Chicago White Sox organization, approached Mark on that autumn day, everything changed. In the six years since, Vincent has taken his game to the next level and it’s come about thanks in part to a revolution within baseball training that’s turned Vincent into one of the greatest prospects to ever come out of Eau Claire. While other boys spend their winters shooting hoops or on the ice, Vincent, a junior at Eau Claire Memorial, has spent much of this winter at Momentum Baseball Academy or in Madison, working out with his GRB Academy baseball team. He spends six days a week doing something to improve his game. Some days it’s simple stuff, like throwing with his younger brother or weight lifting, but other times he dips into the new technology and uses PlyoCare balls to keep his arm healthy.

These balls are essentially medicine balls made of a rubber skin and filled with sand. Vincent uses two different weights, one 225 grams and another 1000 grams, and he throws them backward, trying to replicate the motion his arm takes throwing a traditional baseball.

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STAFF PHOTO BY DAN REILAND Eau Claire Memorial’s Vincent Trapani, pictured posing with his glove, is an Arkansas commit looking to become Eau Claire’s next baseball star. View more photos at LeaderTelegramPhotos.com.