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He doesn’t have to say another word. Shields just gave one of his goals for the 2010 baseball season.
It’s been a steady rise the last three-plus seasons for the pitcher that battled through nearly six years in the minor leagues. The 27-year-old right-hander has earned a reputation for being a workhorse. His manager Joe Maddon calls him “reliable” and a “workaholic.” And it all started in Newhall.
“It helped me out a lot,” Shields says of his time at Hart High. He is a 2000 graduate. “(Former Hart head coach) Bud Murray had a lot to do with my career. I was kind of a thrower, not really a pitcher back then. He kind of made me learn how to pitch a little bit and compete. He made me learn a lot about the game of baseball.”
But family helped out as well. Shields has a very unique one. His cousin is Aaron Rowand, the center fielder for the San Francisco Giants. But he has other relatives involved in professional baseball as well. The other two, his brother Jeremy and cousin Tim Hutting are also Hart grads who played under Murray.
Hutting was the shortstop on the 1999 CIF championship Hart baseball team and a teammate of Shields. Now Hutting is playing for the independent Sioux Falls Canaries of the American Association. This is Hutting’s seventh season playing professional baseball. The San Francisco Giants drafted him in the eighth round of the 2003 Major League Baseball Draft.
Jeremy Shields played for College of the Canyons, then briefly at Cal State Northridge before hanging up the spikes. He currently works for PSI Sports Management and player agent Page Odle. Jeremy is the director of operations for the company. One of the contracts he helped work on was the deal his brother signed with the Rays prior to the 2008 season.
“We played baseball (together) since we were little,” James says. “I think when I was out of the womb, my brothers were throwing balls at me.”
But Jeremy Shields and Hutting say James deserves a lot of the credit for being where he is. “We’re all proud of him,” Hutting says. “He’s worked hard to be where he’s at and he made some good decisions. Just worked hard and let talent take over.”
Jeremy says his mother recently watched some old videos of James. One video was of the pro player in kindergarten. The teacher read off what each kid in the class said they were most likely to be. When it came to James’ turn, the teacher read off that he was most likely to become a professional baseball player.
“For me, I knew he was pretty good when he was 10, just striking everyone out and everyone was afraid of him,” Jeremy says.
Obviously there’s a lot of family pride in what James has accomplished, but he also takes pride in what his family is doing. Hutting has been batting close to .300 this year in Sioux Falls as he keeps trying to latch on to a Major League-affiliated club, as the independent leagues are not affiliated.
This is the 27-year-old’s third season in independent ball.
Hutting said he had a tryout with the Los Angeles Dodgers prior to last season and excelled. “I was talking to one of their brass and he said, ‘Hey, it’s great to see a pro baseball player out here in tryouts. Oh wait, you’re 26?’”
His age makes it a challenge for him to latch on, but he’s not giving up. “I’m going to play until they tell me to go home,” Hutting says.
James agrees. He says about Hutting: “He’s always had the skills and talent. I hope he keeps trying. There’s never a length of time when someone should stop playing baseball.”
That’s for some. Others find a way to stay in the game, like Jeremy. He has taken an interest in writing as a hobby, so he has started up a sports web site called sportscog.com. He says it’s like the Drudge Report for sports.
“Yeah, my brother’s a little entrepreneur,” James says of Jeremy. When James’ Rays come to Anaheim, upwards of 60 family members and friends come to see him. It’s sort of like the family reunion.
The hope is that next year’s family reunion takes place at the All-Star Game. The fabric of the Shields family, one might say, is a red thread. It stitches many members of the family together, like it does a baseball. “Even without the pro athletes in the family, baseball’s a great tool in life. It teaches life lessons,” Jeremy says. “It’s got the family really close.”
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