For those who scour Facebook on a regular basis, the words “happy place” appear incessantly during the summer when folks show off their pictures of being down the shore.
Don’t expect that from Kyle Smith. His happy place consists of a pile of dirt embedded by a strip of rubber.
“Since my first year playing baseball, I always wanted to be that guy who was on the mound,” said the Notre Dame High senior. “That’s where my love was, being a pitcher. You’re the center of attention and everyone is always looking at you. I love hitting, but pitching was always my first love. I guess you have the weight on your shoulders. You’re always the one that kind of controls the game. Pitching is definitely at the top for me.”
Fortunately for Smith, a Lawrence resident, he will have four more years of it as he decided last fall that he will pitch for Division III Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania.
“That was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders,” he said. “I was worried about where I’d go for college ever since I started going to showcases. I had big dreams, of course. Everyone wants to go to Vanderbilt or USC. But I think Albright is definitely a good fit for me. It’s a smaller school; it fits my personality better. The coaches and players were great. I really liked them.”
Smith is part of a new breed of baseball players whose route to collegiate baseball went through travel ball and showcases rather than high school.
His career started with the Hopewell Valley Baseball Association, as his parents wanted him to hit off a pitching machine at age 5 rather than play T-Ball. He joined Lawrence Little League a year later and immediately began pitching.
“I’m pretty sure I said to them I wanted to be a pitcher,” Smith said. “I didn’t remember how I did those first few years, but I remember doing well from age 10 to 12.”
Smith was always the pitcher that kids feared to hit. Thought he was never “extremely tall,” he said, he was bigger than most kids and threw pretty hard for a little league player. In talking to friends after games, they would say they really wanted to hit against him but they were also scared to hit against him.
From there, he played one year with Lawrence Babe Ruth before switching to the Hamilton A’s for travel ball. After one, season he moved to the Arsenal prior to his sophomore year.
All the while, he kept winning games for Notre Dame. Smith went 5-0 for the Irish freshman team.
“He was really impressive as a freshman,” ND coach Joe Drulis said. “He also played first base for us and did real well.”
As a sophomore, Smith was 2-0 for the JV team before getting shut down at mid-season with a muscle imbalance that affected his arm.
“When I lifted I did all chest and arms and never worked on my back, so I didn’t have a strong back,” Smith said. “What kind of sucked is it was halfway through the season when I started going through arm problems. That took me out of pitching for the Arsenal for some games. I was able to play first base, but I couldn’t throw.”
What impressed Drulis is that while Kyle was shelved, “He came out to every practice and every game. A lot of people don’t do that.”
Smith went to ND’s sports medicine doctor at the University of Pennsylvania and eventually started rehab. He returned to the Irish as a junior and went 2-0 with a 1.58 ERA, but his starts were limited as the Irish had a wealth of talented pitchers.
“He was not used as much as he would have been on a lesser pitching staff,” Drulis said. “But he pitched against Archbishop Wood, a good team from the Philadelphia Catholic League, and pitched very well. He also pitched well against Monroe, and they were ranked seventh in the state. So he pitched well against high quality teams.”
As of mid-April this year, Smith was 1-0 with a 0.70 ERA and five strikeouts in 10 innings.
“He has a good cutter, and a great change-up,” Drulis said. “He keeps the ball down, and being a lefty has a natural movement on his fastball. It tails and moves. His fastball is good but it looks faster because he does a good job with the change-up.”
Smith throws a two- and four-seam fastball and says the cutter is his newest project. “I’m still working on it, but I’m throwing it better.”
Notre Dame teammate Nick Mancuso talked to Smith about playing for the Reading Blue Rocks during the autumn of his junior year, and the Reading coach hooked him up with Albright. The fastest he has been clocked to date is 83 with the Blue Rocks last fall.
‘Since my first year playing baseball, I always wanted to be that guy who was on the mound.’
Smith has gotten exposure in big-time situations by doing showcase camps at Dartmouth, Virginia, Villanova and North Carolina. He wasn’t expecting miracles from those situations, but got what he wanted out of them.
“UNC and UVA were really high reaches,” he said. “I was just going out there to show off what I had and see if I had any interest. I wasn’t throwing nearly hard enough to get recruited by any of those schools.”
There was some interest from Dartmouth but Smith said his standardized test scores were not high enough.
“Some other schools came out the summer of my junior year but nothing happened there so I was getting kind of nervous,” he said.
But when Mancuso brought him onto the Blue Rocks, the head coach was an assistant at Alvernia and had connections with Albright.
“The Albright coach was able to watch me pitch one game and he said ‘I’d really like to have you.” Smith said.
That took all the pressure off coming into his senior year. But despite being upperclassmen who will pitch in college, he still acts like a freshman trying to make the team.
“He does charts, he’ll get foul balls at home games, he’ll get the water even though he’s a senior,” Drulis said. “If first base needs to be raked, he rakes it. He’s just a team guy. If somebody’s assigned a foul ball and there’s been two already he’ll say ‘I’ll get the third one.’ Not too many seniors will do that. He’s a great kid.”
Smith, who does volunteer work at the Atrium in Lawrenceville, isn’t sure what makes him such a model citizen.
“I have no idea why I do it,” he said with a laugh. “I was always taught to respect your coaches and when you’re asked to do something, do it. After the games, players are always supposed to be raking the field and raking the mound. I always try to be out there to help on the mound and get it in pristine condition. I don’t want to be one of those guys who’s the last one to be there for practice and the first one to leave. No one likes those people.”
It’s tough not to like Smith, whose goals this year all team-oriented. He wants to win the county tournament and go far in states after some early disappointments the past few years.
“For all us seniors, it’s our last year in high school and everyone wants to do well,” he said.
And Smith is ready to do his part.
“My arm feels really good,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of running to get conditioned. I’m ready for every game. Sometimes getting up at six and going to school, you don’t have energy to play. So I try to find something boost up my energy during the day. The last time I pitched, I drank a little Mountain Dew. It worked. I think it woke me up.”
Sounds like an endorsement deal waiting to happen.
“Yeah,” Smith said with a laugh. “Maybe I can get sponsored by them.”
Notre Dame pitcher Kyle Smith, pictured here before a 6-0 home win over West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, recently committed to continue his baseball career at Albright College. (Staff photo by Samantha Sciarrotta.),
