JUPITER, Fla. — U.S. Navy officer and St. Louis Cardinals minor-league pitcher Mitch Harris has been selected to play for a touring baseball team before he reports for deployment later this year. The Cardinals recently signed the righthanded pitcher who graduated last spring from the Naval Academy with many of the program’s pitching records. The Cardinals drafted and signed Harris unsure when he would be able to pitch for them — and unsure if he would be able to play at all during his active duty.
Now, he’s found a team.
Harris will pitch on a team of military personnel organized for the U.S. Southern Command Baseball Partnership Tour. The club will play exhibition games around South America and the Caribbean, and they will also do humanitarian work and hold baseball clinics for youths. The stops in the monthlong tour include games in Panama, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Chile and elsewhere. In the Dominican Republic, they will play at a major-league campus — the San Diego Padres’. The traveling team’s schedule also calls for a youth baseball clinic at the Padres facility.
The team will play at Rod Carew Baseball Stadium in Panama, and some of the teams they’ll play include the Honduran Air Force All-Star club and the Santiago All-Stars. The quality of competition in some games will exceed what Harris has seen in college.
Once the tour concludes, Harris will be headed for active duty as a weapons officer on the USS Ponce.
The U.S. Southern Command club played a warmup game just south of the Palm Beach International airport this past week. Harris pitched and batted No. 3 for the traveling team. He hit a stand-up triple. Cardinals assistant general manager John Abbamondi visited Harris there to present him a gift from the organization — an official Cardinals jersey. The jersey carries his name, and the number of his ship.
Newly signed pitcher Mitch Harris, a Naval Academy grad, is presented with his Cardinals jersey by Asst. GM John Abbamondi this week. (Source: Mitch Harris)
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anchors away…………….go Mitch & Cardinals….red birds redbirds not a bunch a dead birds!
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-emc2013 post is right on. I stand and applaud the Cardinal organization for giving Harris a shot. There is no reason why, if he works out that he cannot be ready to pitch for the Cardinal organization when his military service time is up. I think the Cards believe in Harris, else why make the commitment.
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At worst, Harris would be 27. The minimum committment on active duty is 5 years. Hopefully, the Navy will be able to continue to give him these relatively modest opportunities to play. Certainly, he’ll have the ability to keep in shape.
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I think it’s great this guy is being given a chance. It’s clearly a long shot that this guy will ever work out, but I’m glad he’s going to be given a chance. It really makes for a great story.
And, let’s not forget that Harris was pretty highly touted coming into the draft. He was probably one of the best, if not *the* best college senior in the draft. He’s a talent. Nonetheless, what’s he going to be when his time in the Navy is up? 29? 30?
All in all, a classy move by the Cards to give him a shot. He really is a great story.
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