Before leaving for college, Dan Gentzler had planned on a long playing career on the Mary Washington baseball team.
But when he showed up for fall practice in 2006, he was stunned to find at least 50 other players thinking the same thing.
At Mary Washington, a Division III university in Virginia that doesn’t offer athletic scholarships, it amounted to an open tryout.
“I was surprised because Mary Washington had recruited me hard coming out of high school, and they sold me on the chance to come in and help the team right away and compete for early playing time,” Gentzler said. “Then I show up and all these players are fighting for the same chance.”
Although Gentzler said he hit and pitched well during the tryouts, the sheer quantity of players gunning for a roster spot made it difficult for him to stand out. When the coaches posted their first round of cuts, Gentzler wasn’t on it.
Before it even began, Gentzler’s career seemed over.
But his love for baseball wasn’t. After rising from the ranks of the unwanted and unnoticed, Gentzler enters this weekend’s series against No. 2 Virginia tied for second in Terrapin baseball school history for saves. After spending 2007 on this university’s club team and the first portion of the 2008 season buried on the Terps’ bench, Gentzler transformed himself from a middling pitcher to one of the team’s most reliable relievers.
“When I look back on it, it’s still kinda crazy,” Gentzler said. “To think about where I started to where I am now, it’s something I could have never imagined.”
Gentzler lasted just one year at Mary Washington before he decided to transfer to College Park so he could remain closer to his Berwyn, Pa., home and experience the “big school atmosphere.”
“Mary Washington didn’t even have a football team,” Gentzler said. “At that point, I figured if I wasn’t going to play baseball, I might as well go to school someplace where I will be happy.”
At this university, Gentzler joined the club team, where he emerged as one of the team’s best pitchers, thoroughly dominating during the team’s run to the semifinals of the 2007 National Club Baseball Association World Series.
After the season’s conclusion, Gentzler decided to give varsity baseball one more shot. He showed up for the Terps’ walk-on tryouts in the fall, and on the second day of tryouts, Gentzler impressed then-pitching coach Jim Farr enough to earn an extended look during fall practices.
In the team’s winter meetings, Farr called Gentzler into his office and told him he had made the team.
“It was really cool because I had always wanted to keep playing no matter what,” Gentzler said. “At one point I had never thought I would ever get the chance to play varsity baseball again, let alone D-I baseball in the ACC. But I worked my ass off, and it paid off.”
Gentzler barely had time to celebrate before bicep tendonitis derailed his comeback. Despite the stinging pain, Gentzler tried to pitch through it.
The results were disastrous. Gentlzer got hit so hard during practices that the Terps’ coaching staff was reluctant to use him in any game action, and he didn’t even pitch in the first month of the 2008 season.
But he kept working. In what was perhaps the turning point in Gentzler’s baseball career, Farr, armed with a radar gun, told him to throw the ball as hard as he could — regardless of where it went — as the two worked together in a bullpen session.
Gentzler reared back and unleashed. The pitch, Farr said, came in at 84 mph — a mark far behind the ACC norm.
Desperate to once again salvage his baseball career, Gentzler took Farr’s advice and decided to drop the arm slot from which he released the ball. In one week, he went from an overhand pitcher with average stuff to a submarine pitcher with better velocity and deceptive movement.
“When he got here, he was throwing over the top without a lot of success,” fellow reliever Ian Schwalenberg said. “Coach Farr changed him, and all of sudden he was really effective. You have to give him credit — he worked his ass off to make that change, and it couldn’t have been easy.”
Gentzler adapted to the new motion easily, quickly becoming one of the team’s most reliable relievers.
When coach Erik Bakich arrived in June, he didn’t realize the weapon he had in Gentzler until he actually watched him pitch.
“In my seven years at Vanderbilt, we never had a submariner who could throw like that,” Bakich said. “He has terrific command and velocity for someone who throws like that. And we have helped him develop off-speed stuff that has made him even better.”
Although he has struggled on the mound this season, Gentzler enters this weekend’s series against the Cavaliers tied with Charles Devereux for second in school history for saves with 15, just eight behind career leader and current Toronto Blue Jay Brett Cecil.
This season, he’s also doubled as the team’s top first baseman. Though he’s struggled mightily at the plate, he’s had his share of memorable moments, including knocking two home runs off Georgia Tech’s projected first-round draft pick Deck McGuire.
Not bad for someone who, when his college baseball career started, couldn’t even beat out four dozen other kids for a roster spot at Mary Washington.
“Even if I don’t play professional baseball, I can say I made a difference for this program,” Gentzler said. “But don’t get me wrong, if there is even a small chance to play baseball next year, I will be there.”
lemaire@umdbk.com
