Greene not so green
Hammond Central junior playing more like veteran in first season of high school ball
Baseball came calling for Joseph Greene.
After playing basketball during his first two years in high school, Greene was invited to join a pickup baseball game that steered him back to the sport he had started at the age of 3.
“It just felt so good,” he said. “Then it was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to come back.’ ”
Greene is back on the diamond and is hitting like he never left as a key part of the lineup in Hammond Central’s inaugural season. Through the first 13 games, he was hitting .486, the second-best average on the team, and was leading the Wolves in triples (4), home runs (3), RBIs (16) and runs scored (26).
Greene, a junior center fielder and pitcher for the Wolves, grew up playing baseball at Hermits Park on the northwest side of Hammond, where he developed the swing that’s powering his lofty numbers. He fondly recalled his 12U season, when he said he hit 17 home runs — including one memorable shot during the championship game.
“Someone in the stands was telling me that if I hit a home run, they’d go get it,” Greene said.
A few pitches later, that fan was venturing beyond the trees in right center to retrieve the home run that Greene had just crushed, he said.
There was no baseball in Indiana during Greene’s freshman year due to the coronavirus pandemic. It was during his sophomore year at Clark when a pair of childhood friends and lifelong baseball teammates, Joseph Merrick and Anthony Huber, talked Greene into joining a pickup game.
“I’ve been playing with those guys since I was 5,” Greene said.
All three moved to Hammond Central after Clark closed. Greene called Merrick, a junior third baseman, “a stud,” and Huber, a senior shortstop/pitcher, committed to Prairie State last week.
Those two weren’t the only familiar faces when Green returned to baseball. Hammond Central coach Michael Caston was an assistant on Clark’s boys basketball staff and said he wasn’t surprised when Greene showed up to try out for baseball.
“I always knew he was an athlete,” Caston said. “But it did amaze me once I started to see his ability — the way he swings a bat and moves in center field catching fly balls. The athleticism is there.”
When asked what has helped him hit so well this season, Greene pointed at Caston as he spoke.
“At the beginning of the season, I was watching the first pitch because I liked to see what I was working against,” Greene said. “But his philosophy is always to be ready for that first pitch. After I took that down, it’s helped me not fall behind in counts.”
Greene said he hopes to be more of a two-way player in the future and showed off his arm during a start on Saturday, when he allowed just one hit, struck out 11 and walked one in five innings against Hammond Academy.
But Greene was even more impressive at the plate, going 2-for-3 with a triple, a home run, three walks, five runs scored and two RBIs over two games — the kind of performance that Caston wants to keep seeing.
“I just hope his bat stays hot,” Caston said.