InSIdE ThIS ISSuE Cherry Hill 10-U rolling into tournament season PAGE 2
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JULY 10-16, 2019
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A year into his pro baseball career, Eastern High alum Jack Herman is excelling in A-ball
By RYAN LAWRENCE Sports Editor
RYAN LAWRENCE/South Jersey Sports Weekly
With his team trailing the Lakewood BlueClaws by three in the top of the fifth inning – and one batter after a teammate tried to ignite the Grasshoppers by stretching a double into a triple, only to make the first out of the inning at third base – Jack Herman went to work. The Berlin native and left fielder of the Greensboro Grasshoppers slashed a single to left. Herman wasted little time sliding safely into second with his first stolen base in A-ball, and immediately advanced to third on an errant throw. Minutes later, he was scampering across home plate with his team’s first run. An inning later, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ South Atlantic League affiliate scored six times to take control of the game in a come-from-behind win. Before the Grasshoppers boarded their bus in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, bound for Hagerstown, Maryland, three days later – about a four-hour ride – Herman rewarded friends and family who drove up Route 70 with a going-away present: he reached base three times, including
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hitting a home run, in the Grasshoppers’ 10-1 victory. “It’s pretty surreal,” Jack Herman’s father, Ken, said from his seat in Section 109 at FirstEnergy Park. Exactly 12 months removed from high school, when he helped lead Eastern Regional High School and Olympic-Colonial to Diamond Classic and Carpenter Cup tournament titles as a senior, Jack Herman is excelling in his first full summer of professional baseball. “I’m not surprised, because I just think the world of Jack not only as a player but as a person,” Eastern High coach Rob Christ said. “The Pirates think highly of him. Frankly, despite the fact that he was drafted in the 30th round, I’m not surprised by that, either. I’m surprised so many teams missed out on his talent level.” It takes a special talent to be drafted by a major league team, period. But the odds of making it from 30th round pick through the grueling minor league journey all the way to a major league ballpark aren’t favorable. In the 10-year period between 2002 and 2011, 30th round picks are hitting .083: only 25 of the 300 players selected in the 30th round reached the big leagues. But, among those 25 are current big leaguers Jake Diekman (Phillies, 2007) and Hector Santiaplease see DREAMS, page 4