When Garrett Heaton steps in the box against any high school pitcher he has the advantage already. Heck, he will most likely have the same advantage in two years also, when he steps in against a Division-I pitcher from the America East conference.
That’s because he is one of the few local players who can say his father both lived it and was able to teach it to him.
“I think the only difference between myself and a kid who doesn’t have a former MLB player as a parent is that i started learning things about the game that some players don’t learn until they’re in college or in some cases never learn,” said the senior at Bellport HS.
For those unfamiliar, Neal Heaton was the Steven Matz of the previous generation. After winning the Carl Yastrzemski Award out of Sachem High School in 1978, he accepted a full scholarship to pitch for the University of Miami.
He utterly dominated the best hitters in the country. He still holds the program records for wins in a season (18), most wins in a career (42), most strikeouts in a game (18) and most strikeouts in a career (381). He was selected by the Cleveland Indians in the second round of the 1981 draft and ended up pitching 11 years in the MLB with 80 victories. His number is now retired by the University of Miami baseball team.
Needless to say, Garrett has received some critical insight during his playing career. Does he consider that to be an advantage?
“I do think having him as my father gave me a bit of advantage for that exact reason,” he said. “Being around professional baseball players for so long gave him a lot of knowledge for the game and I was able to begin receiving that knowledge at a young age which helped me become the intelligent baseball player that I am today,” he said.
He is coming off a strong junior season at Bellport in which he led his squad to a 10-10 season before having their season cut short by Tim Quinn and a strong Sachem East team.
“Quinn pitched great against us and there wasn’t much we could do but this upcoming season I have much higher expectations for our team. Since we have almost all of our starters returning I think that we are gonna be able to do some damage and hopefully make a deep playoff run,” he said.
After playing with the Body Armor Titans this summer, Heaton feels he is prepared to take his game to the next level.
“I was able to face some of the best teams and some of the best pitching up and down the East Coast which really helped improve my game. Going into the summer I didn’t want to focus on just one part of my game, I wanted to finish the summer knowing I improved myself as an overall player and not just a better hitter or infielder which I think I was able to accomplish.”
He also chose to accept a scholarship to Stony Brook. He will be part of a very strong class that also features pitcher Brandon Bonnano and infielder Nick Grande. Also, they will have Aaron Glickstein returning from his Tommy John surgery in time for the 2017 season, which gives them a formidable collection of freshman.
For me Stony Brook was an easy choice for many different reasons. I hate losing more than anything which is one of the main reasons I chose to commit there. All of the success they’ve had in recent years shows that they are serious about winning and I feel that the way I play the game will fit perfectly into they way they go about things there. I also really like the coaching staff. Coaches like Coach Senk and Coach Pennucci are going to be great to play for because I can tell they are very serious about the game and are all about winning. Plus the university is very close to home which is a huge bonus for me.
Before any of that happens, Heaton will have one more year to enjoy dominating at the high school level. It will be a tall order to out-perform what his father did 37 years ago, but he can still leave his mark by continuing to play with the passion and intelligence that allowed him to get to this point.
