GUILFORD — Right-handed pitcher Leif Bigelow will be starting his junior year of college this fall at a new address.
The 6-foot-2 Bigelow, the only current Division I college baseball player from Windham County, has spent two years at the University of Connecticut and, with four years of athletic eligibility remaining, he is transferring to the University of Maine in Orono for the 2020-21 school year in the hope of getting his college baseball career off the ground.
Bigelow has loved baseball from a young age and has committed his mind, body, and spirit to the sport. Growing up, he was faced with challenges in terms of recruitment and lack of masterful coaching.
It takes a lot for a player from Vermont, even a good one, to get recruited by a Division I college program.
Bigelow was a pitcher and shortstop at Brattleboro Union High School and for the American Legion Post 5 baseball team. His fastball in high school topped out at about 85 mph, and he threw a decent curveball and change-up. Few batters had the skills, or luck, to hit against him. In his junior year, he posted a 0.82 ERA in 58 innings with 82 strikeouts.
Bigelow was the most valuable player in the 2016 Vermont American Legion Baseball tournament. Post 5 won the state championship that year.
To help his chances of getting noticed, he attended showcase camps south of Vermont and drew some interest from colleges, as well as from some Major League Baseball scouts.
The University of Connecticut - one of the best baseball programs in New England - was the first college to have him on campus for a tour, and offered him an athletic scholarship early in his junior season of high school. The Huskies are a year-in-and-year-out top team in Division I.
Bigelow was the fifth in his family to attend the school in Storrs, but the first to be involved in athletics.
He was the ace of the pitching staff in his senior year at BUHS in the spring of 2018, but he also had pain in his right elbow. It didn't go away, yet he kept pitching.
After visiting the school trainer nearly every day, Bigelow had two MRIs at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
And then one day, as the BUHS team was heading to Keene for a game, Bigelow found out he had a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow. Reconstructive surgery would be likely.
“At the end of senior year, I finally told UConn and went down there so [their training staff could] look at it. They didn't even do an MRI - they just put me on the table and did the stress test, ” Bigelow said. “They knew.”
He went under the knife in July before he started his freshman year at UConn and missed the 2019 baseball season.
But his rehab went well, and within nine months, Bigelow was once again throwing off the mound in bullpen sessions.
Last summer, he was back in a competitive environment, throwing 39{2/3} innings for the Westfield (Mass.) Starfires of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League (FCBL). He pitched in 18 games and made three starts, going 1–2 with a 4.53 ERA and 30 strikeouts.
Another lost season
This season, Bigelow got his first NCAA game action for UConn against top-ranked Michigan on Feb. 22 at Port St. Lucie, Fla. He came in as a relief pitcher with the Huskies trailing, 12–2.
“My whole life, I was going to UConn to play college baseball, so I was so jacked up,” Bigelow said. “In the moment, I wasn't nervous at all, it was cool and surreal.”
“The first pitch I throw, with runners on second and third, I get a comebacker to the mound and in my brand new glove that I didn't have broken in all the way,” he said.
“I throw home, got the guy out, and was like, 'Wow, I should have been wearing my other glove that I'm used to.' Then I gave up a home run and figured I should not throw the curveball.
“After that, I settled in and pitched well with my two-seam [fastball].” He gave up two runs in 3{2/3} innings.
A week later, on Feb. 29, he struggled again in a short relief stint against the University of New Orleans, walking three batters and hitting two more with pitches.
Bigelow's earned run average stood at 9.00 across five innings.
Then came the coronavirus outbreak. The UConn team flew to Richmond, Va., to play in a baseball tournament set to begin on March 13. They landed, had a practice, and, amid the first responses to the emerging threat of the Coronavirus and COVID-19, ended up back on a bus back to Connecticut before they played a single game.
It was a long bus ride back, but Bigelow didn't mind, as he said he dislikes flying.
The team then learned that the 2020 collegiate baseball season was canceled. The College World Series was canceled as well.
And, once again, Bigelow's collegiate baseball career was put on hold.
The journey back
Now, nearly two years after the surgery, Bigleow is back to feeling athletic and says he has built his velocity back up to about 90 mph. He said he learned to to make some changes.
“In high school, I did not take care of my arm the right way. I threw way too much,” Bigelow said.
UConn paid for his elbow surgery and did a good job rehabbing him, Bigelow said.
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Major League Baseball entry draft cut back this year from 40 rounds to five, creating a logjam in the roster of players. Many players who would have been drafted in rounds 5 through 40 if not for the pandemic were instead coming back to Storrs for the 2021 season.
While the shutdown kept players from leaving, it did not stop 15 freshmen coming to UConn.
Even though the NCAA is allowing teams to offer more than 31 scholarships without any penalty, Bigelow now faced competing with 31 players for minimal scholarships, many of them partial.
UConn told Bigelow that he might lose his scholarship.
He has no hard feelings. “I'm going to be a junior academically, and I haven't even played a full season yet,” Bigelow said. “I still have four years [of athletic eligibility] left. I wanted to find a place where I could have an immediate impact.”
Bigelow is relieved that he quickly began exploring the idea of transferring schools. When he began, 100 players were doing so. “Now, it's almost 1,000 names with programs getting cut,” he said. “It's the same situation everywhere.”
Bigelow, who said he was looking for a smaller Division I school in New England, first reached out to the University of Maine.
He said he is excited to join head coach Nick Derba, a catcher who played in the St. Louis Cardinals farm system and made it all the way to Triple-A. Derba never made the big leagues because he was stuck behind the Cardinals' All-Star catcher, Yadier Molina.
Bigelow wants to prove himself and get drafted out of Maine after one season, but he could stay to pursue a master's degree while continuing his collegiate baseball career. The Black Bears have not had a winning season since 2013.
“The awesome thing about Maine is that I will be able to get in-state tuition at the price of [the University of Vermont], as well as an academic scholarship. I wasn't on academic at UConn,” Bigelow said. “They said, 'If you do your thing, we will give you an athletic scholarship.' It's a little less expensive.”
He will continue to study communications because “it's the most important thing in life.”
Mentoring and improving in Vermont
During the COVID-19 shutdown, Bigelow was told to return home. He had hoped to play summer ball with the Keene SwampBats of the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL), one of the top summer leagues in the country for college baseball players to showcase their abilities.
“I was going to Keene this year. It was dream after going there my whole life and thinking this is the coolest freaking thing ever,” Bigelow said.
But the NECBL season was canceled, as were most of the other top summer collegiate leagues. Bigelow said he is determined to play next summer at Alumni Field, the same field where he pitched with a confirmed tear in his elbow.
But the Futures League still is planning to start play on July 1, and Bigelow called up Westfield, hoping to join the team as a commuter. The Starfires are concerned about host families and new people joining the small community.
Bigelow is also staying in shape at home by training with his 16-year-old neighbor, fellow pitcher Zinabu McNeice.
“I've played ball with him all the way through and taught him some stuff,” Bigelow said. “He loves it just like I did growing up. We are going to the field almost everyday this whole 'coronatime.' We are four years apart and he can catch me, which is awesome.”
For McNeice, who was adopted from Ethiopia at age 3 and immediately fell in love with the sport, the enthusiasm for this training time is mutual.
He has been a key member of three state championship teams in Little League and Babe Ruth baseball. He was planning to play American Legion baseball this summer, but the season was canceled.
“I watched [Leif] throughout high school, and he inspired me ever since because he's such a good player. Leif is out there 24/7, throwing and strengthening, and I want to do that, too,” McNeice said. “Once COVID started, we started hanging out and he brought all these training things.”
“He taught me all these cool ways to warm up, work out, to just throw. It makes me better every time. He throws harder and harder. He's teaching me how to throw different pitches and how he trains.”
Bigelow told McNeice to attend showcases to get his name out there and reach his goal of playing in college. Coaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, among others, have told McNeice they see potential.
McNeice's fastball comfortably clocks in at 78 mph, about where Bigelow's velocity was at that age.
“I know how hard it is to go through the recruitment process, and he's leading up to that,” Bigelow said. “I'll be here to help him and be a good mentor.”