University of Richmond Athletics
Fresh Faces Feature: For the Love of the Game
10/20/2016 | Baseball
Most young boys play catch in the yard or take a few swings pretending to have just hit a walk-off homer to clinch a World Series berth. For freshman Ryan Shaw it was no different.
Shaw vividly remembers, and has a picture to prove it, he was two years old hitting of a tee in the front yard as his dad kept putting tennis balls on the tee for him to hit. His mom tells him that when he was a toddler his favorite player was Pedro Martinez, as he could be found shouting “Pedro! Pedro!” Baseball has always been in Shaw's blood.
“I've loved baseball my entire life,” he said. “It's the first thing I can remember loving, besides my parents of course. I also played basketball and football growing up, but baseball has been that one consistent thing in my life that I haven't gotten tired of.”
Like most young, aspiring Major Leaguers, Shaw started out in tee ball. When he was really young during those coach-pitch games, he played shortstop, but he remembers his transition behind the plate.
“I remember the first year of kid-pitch and my dad telling me that the catcher was an important position now because you have to stop the ball and throw people out, and I was in,” he said. “I honestly was always attracted to putting on catcher's gear for some reason. Once I put the gear on and got behind the plate, I felt like a beast,” he laughed.
Since the time catching became a vital position in little league, Shaw could be found behind the mask.
“Catching is what you call a premium position and as long as I can play one of those types of positions I feel like it puts me in a very good position to keep playing as long as I can. Catching is tough, but I love it, and it's by far where I feel most comfortable on the field.”
The role of the catcher is a unique one. A role that offers a different viewpoint of the game, and one that offers control. Shaw loves being involved in every pitch.
“The thing I really love about catching is when I'm standing out in the infield or something and a ball is hit to me and I don't make the play, I don't know when I am going to be able to make up for it,” he said. “Maybe it's not even in the field, maybe I have to get up to the plate and make people forget about what I just did. When I'm catching if I do something that's not ideal or I feel like I let the team down, I literally have the next pitch. Every single pitch I'm involved, so there's an opportunity to be successful on literally every pitch.”
As a young catcher in the Spider Baseball program, Shaw has the unique opportunity to have a pair of veteran catchers in junior Brandon Johnson and sophomore Kyle Schmidt to learn from. Two catchers who are have different styles and offer different approaches to the game.
“BJ and Kyle have been awesome,” Shaw said. “You can just tell in practice how comfortable BJ is with the game and he's a great defensive catcher. He knows what he is doing out there and he has a great arm. He's taught me how to manage my time during practice and during games. He's taught me how to conserve my energy, when to go all out, when to make sure I'm getting my rest, and just go about everything with a business type attitude and just make sure I'm doing things the right way. I think Kyle and I are more similar in styles in terms of a catcher. BJ is more of a lanky catcher who is really athletic, and a lot more flexible than me. Kyle and I are your 'old-school stocky catcher.' Kyle has been really good with telling me we aren't going to be getting into these weird contortions with his hips like BJ can do, but he says 'here's what we can do and how we can make sure we are keeping the ball in front of us and using the skills that we have to be successful back there.'”
Shaw, a native of the greater Seattle area, is excited for the opportunity to wear a Spider uniform and take on an exciting 2017 schedule.
“Getting past the fact that we are playing the national champions in the first game, we are going to the University of Texas and these other big schools that we are playing, which is going to be awesome, but it's more than that. It's experiencing places I've never been before. Obviously coming from the state of Washington, I've never been to South Carolina or North Carolina. I've never been to a lot of the places that are on the docket this year, and I'm going to get to experience some places that I never thought I'd ever go maybe, but I'm going to be going there my first year. It's always nice because I feel like I've played baseball in a lot of different places and I love checking off places. We are going to be playing in some big environments and we are going to see what we can do.”
