Ex-shen stars Anderson, Huerter pro athletes in Atlanta.
Huerter, Anderson play ball in different sports, but for the same city
Walking off the field after his dominant major-league debut on Aug. 25, Atlanta Braves rookie pitcher Ian Anderson looked up and nodded at the tall, masked redhead standing in a suite at Truist Park in Cumberland, Ga.
Kevin Huerter, a second-year guard for the NBA’S Atlanta Hawks, used his connections to be with his girlfriend among the 150 people allowed in the ballpark because of coronavirus restrictions.
He wouldn’t have missed it. He and Anderson are Shenendehowa High classmates, Class of 2016, who played baseball together starting at 7 years old. They won a Class AA state baseball title together as seniors.
Now they ’re pro athletes playing in the same city. What are the odds? Huerter was asked Tuesday.
“I wouldn’t even guess,” Huerter said. “Obviously, extremely, extremely low. … It’s crazy. You don’t get two players from the same town make it to their respective pro leagues, let alone the same city. So it’s kind of crazy how it ended up.”
The Braves took Anderson with the third overall pick in the 2016 Major League Baseball draft right out of Shen. Huerter, a center fielder in baseball, played basketball for two seasons at the University of Maryland, then was chosen 19th overall by the Hawks in the
2018 NBA draft.
That day in August, Huerter watched Anderson limit the Yankees to just one hit in six innings in a 5-1 victory. It was an auspicious beginning for Anderson, who keeps impressing in a sensational first season.
Anderson will start Game 2 against the Miami Marlins in a National League Division Series in Houston on Wednesday. First pitch is scheduled for 2:08 p.m. on MLB Network.
He roared through six regular-season starts with a 1.95 earned-run average, then hurled six shutout innings and struck out nine in a 5-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds to complete a two-game sweep of an NL Wild Card Series last Thursday.
“I mean, he’s been dominant,” Huerter said. “I made it into his first game he played at home against the Yankees, and just from watching that game in the ballpark, he had the entire team offbalance the whole game. It’s remarkable. He doesn’t look like a rookie.”
Huerter, a 6-foot-7 guard, has averaged 10.8 points per game over two seasons while shooting a healthy 38.3 percent on 3-pointers for a rebuilding Hawks team.
Anderson went to a Hawks game and visited Huerter’s house in the Atlanta area. They played a round of golf together before the pandemic. Anderson said it’s helpful to have a lifelong friend who knows the area.
“It’s awesome,” Anderson said on a conference call Wednesday. “He’s been doing it for a couple of years now. Down in the minor leagues, I didn’t really get a true taste of Atlanta, so he’s been great. I’ve been in contact with him quite a bit. Hopefully, once COVID ends, all of this, we can meet each other around a little bit.”
Their families became very close during the summers Anderson and Huerter played for the Clifton Park Knights, a travel team that reached the Cal Ripken World Series as 12-year-olds and Babe Ruth World Series as 14-year-olds. Their fathers, Bob Anderson and Tom Huerter, coached them as well as Ian’s twin brother, Ben, now a pitcher in the Texas Rangers’ minor-league system.
Kevin Huerter said those experiences playing in pressure games — as many as four in a day — helped hone their competitive instincts.
“One hundred percent,” he said. “I would think kind of over the years, kind of building that mental toughness, staying locked in as an athlete, being able to focus that long, it’s definitely helped us up to this point.”