COMING HOME

Local boy makes good is always a great story. What if the local boy isn’t the biggest, most physically gifted kid? What if he’s more like Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger?

Known as a grooming ground for top college players and Major League Baseball draft picks, the Alaska Baseball League is loaded with skilled baseball players — big, physical and full of talent. Rarely does a local Alaska player catch on in the ABL, and more rare that he has much success. The odds are long, and fitting in with the players from the nation’s top colleges and programs can be intimidating at best for small-town ballplayers.

Except, nothing intimidates Palmer-grown Kyle Bovy.

Many gunslingers of the Wild West weren’t big, either; just fast, smart and confident. At 5-feet-10 and 140 pounds, Bovy matches talent, size and pedigree with his grit, guts and savvy. Like Billy the Kid’s six-gun, Bovy’s unique pitch comes off the hip, low slung, released from his shoe-tops.

They call it the submarine, a rare pitch in baseball and a total departure from the traditional overhand throwing motion. It’s more like a torpedo, screaming at the target under the surface, catching victims unaware. Thrown underhand with a forward rotation, the sinking ball can be very tough for a batter to track. Although most pitchers usually throw it around 80 mph, Bovy already hits the mid 80s consistently.

A few years ago, his coach at the College of Marvin, Conor Bird, wanted to add a submarine pitcher to the rotation. He needed a kid not afraid of a change and a challenge, someone who knew the game inside and out, someone with more heart, hustle and head than physical ability and talent. He turned to the kid he watched growing up around baseball while he was coaching the Mat-Su Miners to great success — Kyle Bovy.

And Bovy picked it up quickly, mastered it and has been keeping batters baffled and off balance ever since. Just give him a chance and watch what happens.

Watching him warm up in the bullpen, whipping his trademark pitch at Hermon Brothers Field, I listened to a big, confident pitcher with bleach-blond hair and a Division I scholarship loudly exclaim that the submarine pitching style would never get him anywhere. The kid catching for him tried to stick up for Bovy, bringing up MLB star Tim Lincecum, also a slight-framed overachiever using mechanics over muscle. Overhearing all of this, Bovy torqued his body like a corkscrew and fired a pitch from below his knees like cracking a whip, slinging the ball into the catcher’s mitt with a resounding whack. He muttered, “Well, I think it’s pretty good.”

The submarine pitch can be effective. Ted Abernathy used it for 14 years in the Majors, and Dan Quinsberry rode the submarine style as the best closer in baseball for the Kansas City Royals in the early 1980s. According to his mother, Tammy, Bovy’s been hearing this kind of talk from doubters and naysayers his whole life.

“Just put him out there and see what happens,” she says. He just keeps proving them all wrong.

Early this season against an adult league All-Star team assembled with a former minor league pitcher, Bovy started and pitched five innings, giving up only one hit in a 10-0 win for the Anchorage Glacier Pilots at Mulcahy Stadium. His trademark pitch was unhittable, with coach Bird, now the coach of the Glacier Pilots, and his parents watching proudly.

Now Bovy is finally fulfilling a boyhood dream of playing in the Alaska Baseball League, and it’s a dream that’s been growing over a lifetime spent around the league and the game he loves.

For years, parents Randy and Tammy Bovy have supported their beloved Mat-Su Miners as fans and host home parents to 17 ball players.

They’re good, kind, hard-working, salt-of-the-earth people you expect to find in Palmer, and proudly tell stories of the players they’ve housed over the years.

Big shots now in the big leagues not only remember the Bovys, they stay in touch, inviting them to big league games and even weddings. However, the Bovys reserve the most pride for their son. Kyle grew up with ABL players, including future big leaguers, living at his house each summer. He played with them, learned from them, idolized them and dreamed of playing in the ABL just like them.

Kyle’s parents tell the story of their son, 5-foot-nothing and 100 pounds soaking wet, trying out for his high school baseball team.

“They said he was too small,” Tammy said. “I said, just give him a chance and he’ll show you what he can do.”

Kyle not only made the team, but excelled in high school, playing almost every position on the field at different times. He showed enough skill to move on to the college baseball ranks. This summer, he continues overcoming the odds, catching on with the Pilots and impacting games as league play heats up.

Although local players rarely make an impact in the ABL, this season Kyle is flourishing in his role as a set-up pitcher for the Anchorage Glacier Pilots. Late in a game, after dozens of pitches thrown in a traditional overhand fashion, batters often struggle with a ball suddenly coming from a completely different point with unorthodox movement, speed and placement. Often coming in for just one inning, he keeps opposing batters off-balance and gets them out of rhythm before turning the game over for a closing pitcher to finish out.

Pat O’Toole, lifelong Glacier Pilot fan and son of Pilots legend Jack O’Toole, has watched Kyle closely this year.

“Kyle’s made an impact on the lineup — a positive impact,” O’Toole says. “When you talk about a kid who lives down the street coming in making an impact? This is one of the best stories we’ve ever had on the team. He’s such an inspiration. Nothing is better than seeing a local kid’s dream come true.”

Though he pitches few innings, Kyle’s 0.00 ERA in ABL play so far this year is still impressive, a testament to his baseball background, ability and continually overcoming the odds. Most of all, he’s proving that he can play here, too.

Adam W. Mokelke is principal at Burchell High School and an avid local baseball fan.