Chesapeake, Virginia (WTKR) – Baseball is no easy feat. Patrick Dudley loves it that way.
“I love that it’s a very difficult game, and you can’t automatically go into it and get success in it, and you have to work constantly,” he said.
“In the weight room, in the facility, the hours are almost to the point where you have to tell him to take breaks sometimes,” Dudley trainer Philip Kojak added. “He wants it so badly.”
Dudley just finished his freshman season as a kicker and defensive player at the Atlantic Shores. He’s been playing baseball since he was four, but as he hit the travel ball in high school and senior level, he started seeing some stiff competition.
“I was playing against the best kids in the country, so it got more and more difficult,” the bowler said. “You kind of fall in love with it more with the adrenaline and get off in front of a lot of people.”
The Seahawks’ distinction is truly a force over a diamond with seemingly limitless potential and many people take notice. This includes the University of South Carolina, home to one of the best undergraduate baseball programs in the country. Dudley made a verbal commitment to the Gamecocks, who gave him a scholarship last fall during his eighth year in class. That was before Patrick played high school baseball.
“The discussion was, ‘Patrick,’ How often does a child get his dream school offering him a scholarship?” Kojak, senior coach at Atlantic Shores, recalls. Even if it’s early, it doesn’t matter. It’s still a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“It proved to me that all my hard work was paying off and that I didn’t do it for nothing,” Dudley said. “When I got an offer from several schools and I committed to it, it was kind of holding you back and realizing I could really do it.”
He’s on a shortlist of 2025 class players who have already made verbal commitments to college programs. Last season, he joined another rare roster, hitting with both hands and hitting both sides of the board in the same match.
“Why don’t we do this and put you on a short list of no more than 130 years of people who have played in baseball, hit with both hands and hit [from] Both sides? Kojak smiled. It was all for fun. “
“I got a left-handed hit and went in there and put my right hand on,” Dudley recalls. “I walked the guy, but then I got off the inning. I turned left-handed and got out of the turn so it was pretty funny.”
Dudley is part of the loaded freshman class for the Seahawks. The team had reached the statewide quarter-finals in 2022 and the coaches and players feel their best years likely still lie ahead. As for Dudley, he will spend his time focusing on what is right in front of him so that he can achieve his ultimate dream.
“I think the ultimate goal for everyone is to play in MLB,” he said. “I think that’s kind of what I’m working towards.” “I definitely want to go to college, go to college first and then we’ll see what happens.”
Our research did not reveal other high school baseball players who switched pitches and hits in the same game. According to switchpitching.blogspot.com, 1 in 22,500 high school baseball players can play the ball with both hands.
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