True Grit

The position, after all, is patently demanding and immensely unglamorous.

 

You can’t coast, even for a moment. It takes an enormous toll on your body. There’s risk involved, for sure, in the form of fast-moving pitches of all description flying your way, foul tips that allow zero reaction time, opposing players swinging metal bats very close to your head, and the potential for highlight-reel collisions at the plate.

 

Sure, you’re wearing equipment, and it’s improved drastically over the years, but the fact remains that catchers sacrifice their bodies in a manner that none of their teammates have to do.

 

A century ago, there was a well-traveled (Yankees, Red Sox, Senators) catcher named Muddy Ruel who coined the phrase “tools of ignorance” to describe the protective gear that he and like-minded practitioners of the position wear. His half-funny term suggested that that if someone had the brain power to play catcher — and make no mistake, there’s a cerebral element to the job — why would he actually do so?

 

There’re probably as many answers as there are catchers, but suffice it to say that you either revel in the challenge or want no part of it.

 

For Will Slater, who caught for Collegiate’s varsity baseball team the past five years, the answer is, without question, the former.

 

He started out in T-ball in Tuckahoe Little League, played infield, and pitched as he moved up the ladder. Then, when he was about 11 years old and competing for the major league-division Padres, he stepped behind the plate at the suggestion of his father Andrew Slater, Collegiate’s head varsity baseball coach and program leader since 2008, and never looked back.

 

“Catcher is a cool position because you’re involved in every play,” said Will Slater, a 2024 Collegiate graduate who will continue his baseball journey at VMI. “It’s like the quarterback of baseball. You’re the field general. You have the best vantage point. You see everything that’s going on. I appreciate that aspect of it.”

 

What does a catcher do that the casual observer might not notice?

 

“A big part of playing the position is managing your pitching staff in a game and, really, throughout the year,” he explained. “I’m catching bullpen 12 months a year. A lot of that is getting the pitchers out there and giving them a target to throw to. It’s also working with them to develop pitches and become more comfortable and confident on the mound.”

 

Unlike many high school catchers who receive constant signals from the dugout, Slater calls his own pitches. It’s a responsibility he accepted long ago.

 

“Will has spent so much time with the pitching staff over the last five years,” said Andrew Slater. “He has an advanced feel for the game as far as being able to read swings and knowing what pitches pitchers can execute and when.

 

“He’s earned their trust. He’s certainly earned the coaching staff’s trust with his ability to sequence pitches and call the right pitches at the right time. We’ve never had a guy in my 16 years [coaching at Collegiate] that we’ve given the keys to the car to, but he’s earned the right to [call pitches], and he’s done it at such a high level.”

 

That isn’t just a proud dad talking. It’s also a coach who expects nothing less than excellence in preparation and performance from his players and from himself.

 

“When you have your own kid out there and he’s at the premium position and the light’s shining on him,” Andrew Slater said, “it was a learning curve for me, one, to understand just how hard the position is to play and, two, to make sure I wasn’t being too hard on him pitch to pitch and game to game. The catching position fits his personality so well. First and foremost, he’s an incredible teammate and leader in our program.”

 

He’s fearless, undaunted, ultra-competitive, and supremely durable as well.

 

“There’re many attributes that it takes to be a good catcher, but the one that’s at the top of my list is mental and physical toughness,” Andrew Slater added. “Their body will never feel very good. They’re going to be constantly banged up because you just take so much physical wear and tear at that position.

 

“The mental wear and tear makes the game harder because you have to be willing to play with a sore arm, play with a tight back, play on days your legs feel terrible. You have to play on both sides of the ball too. You have to have quality at bats and hit, and that’s where the mental toughness comes in. If you have a bad at bat, you can’t just go hide out in the field somewhere. You have to be locked in every pitch the next inning.”

 

That’s not a problem for Will Slater. It’s all in a day’s work.

 

A 2024 All-Prep League selection, he caught all of the 17-6 Cougars’ games and batted .304 with a .449 on-base percentage, six doubles, and 12 runs batted in. Runners rarely tested his arm, successfully, at least. He surrendered stolen bases in just six of the Cougars’ 23 games.

 

Nicks and dings? Pop-ups which he instantly located and chased down? Pitches he dug from the dirt? Plays at the plate? He’s lost count of how many, just as he has the number of times he crouched into his stance and quickly bounded up again creating stress on his ankles and knees.

 

“Part of the position is that you have to love stuff like that,” Will Slater said. “It’s one of the hardest in sports. That’s part of the challenge. It’s about having toughness and grit.”

 

Suffice it to say, then, that Slater has held forth behind the plate not because it’s easy but because it’s demanding to the max and, ultimately, intensely satisfying and rewarding.

 

“Yes,” he said with a smile. “Exactly.”

~Weldon Bradshaw