Before the injuries….Tim Baird threw as hard as anyone on the Buckeyes staff (above, against Michigan in 2022). “I’m getting stronger, and better,” he said recently. “And there is no pain.” (Press Pros File Photos)
His career stats are another, misleading story. But the character and patience to pursue his goal is front and center as senior reliever Tim Baird fights back to compete, and contribute.
Las Vegas, NV – Unfortunately, in sports we too often become consumed with numbers. Too seldom do we take the time to do the Paul Harvey thing. You know…the rest of the story?
And there is a Paul Harvey story amongst the anticipation and excitement of this 2024 Ohio State baseball team that’s measured up so well, so far, in just nine starts.
They’re hitting .265 as a team, and young pitching is performing at an early level that promises that the best is probably yet to come. In fact, coach Bill Mosiello daily reminds…that this is a work in progress.
Publisher/Editor Sonny Fulks writes Big Ten and Buckeye baseball for Press Pros Magazine.
Youth is center stage, without question. But it’s not without some heartening back stories, as well – a few here and there whose path has had an inordinate number of twists and turns.
In the case of senior reliever Tim Baird, from North Royalton, Ohio, those twists include more time with the orthopedists than batters faced since coming to Ohio State in the fall of 2020.
“Wait ’til you see this guy throw,” the incumbent staff remarked at the time. “He can really get it up there in a hurry.”
And he could…when he was healthy. The problem was, he wasn’t healthy very often.
The fastball timed out at 97 miles per hour. And it had that finish on it in the strike zone that makes it tough for hitters to time and make contact. It’s called movement, and nothing that Baird threw back then was straight once it got to home plate.
In his sophomore season of 2022 he gave coaches a glimpse of what could be, making 17 appearances, striking out 25 in 20 innings, while fighting issues of control that often come with hard throwers. The 25 Ks came with 19 walks, which led to added men on base who inevitably scored ahead of 19 hits in that same 20 innings of work. The earned run average ballooned to 8.41, along with something that just didn’t feel right in his right shoulder.
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After an outing against Michigan in Ann Arbor that spring, he was shut down with arm soreness.
“I had a torn labrum, and there was a muscle tear that had to be reattached in my shoulder,” he recently said, talking about those twists and turns that sometimes come with pitchers who throw as hard as Tim Baird.
The pain, if you haven’t experienced trying to pitch with it, is excruciating – like an ice pick being driven through your eye. It governs every move you make, even drinking a glass of water. Consciously, and sub-consciously you change your every bodily movement to deny that pain.
It took surgeries – plural – and down time. Plenty of down time.
There were doubts. Admitted or not, there are always doubts with pitchers who require reconstruction.
There was the sense of losing ground. Tim Baird is a competitive personality, who loves to pitch, and the reality of succeeding recruiting classes left him to wonder if he’d ever compete again, much less contribute.
With the coaching change in 2023, there did come another opportunity…to test the repairs and navigate one more twist in his college baseball career. He appeared in one game, against UConn in the season’s first weekend, before being shut down for the remainder of the season. More lost time and priority lost midst a pitching staff that desperately needed what Baird was yet unable to contribute.
More doctors, more time, and more patience.
He did his best to maintain his sense of priority. Left to dwell upon he reality of life without baseball, he was an Academic All Big Ten honoree in 2022 – an OSU Academic Scholar-Athlete in 2021 and ’22. And, he learned a new way to throw a baseball.
“I had to change the arm slot after the surgeries, a different path of throwing the ball,” he said recently, with no expressed regrets over time lost and opportunity denied. “I can’t even put my arm where it used to be. It’s all different.
“But it feels good now. I can throw without pain. I’m getting stronger and I’m learning a different way. I’m not where I was, yet, but I’m getting there.”
Thus far in 2024, Baird has made three appearances, pitched 1.2 innings, allowing one hit while striking out 3 and walking 1.
The best stat of all…no pain…and after his journey you can’t emphasize that enough.
“I’m encouraged,” he said with a big smile last week after a scoreless inning against Arizona State. “I’m ready to pitch.”
No complaints, no excuses, and no regrets. He is, to use the phrase, one of really good guys you’ll meet.
And if Tim Baird can get back to anywhere near what he once was…what a boost to a yet-to-be-determined issue of pitching that looms large between now and the next fifty games.
He can’t wait to see, or contribute. He’s waited long enough!
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