The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Semmel goes from first spring training to lockdown
Montana Semmel was living one of his dreams.
After a winter spent getting into the best shape of his life, the Stamford native and Westhill graduate, joined the New York Yankees for his first spring training as a professional baseball player.
What started with him walking into the Yankee’s facility in Tampa in February with high hopes, ended with him in a 14-day quarantine in a hotel, facing an uncertain future.
Now, Semmel is back in Stamford, isolating with his family, trying to stay in shape and waiting, like everyone else.
“The toughest part is not having a place to train,” Semmel said. “I have been throwing with my brother and doing workouts in my house but those are pretty limited. (The Yankees) gave me a throwing program and the strength and conditioning coach is sending us workouts but I don’t have all the same equipment in my house.”
The 6-foot-4, 18-year-old power pitcher with a mid-90s fastball and a devastating curveball was drafted out of Westhill by the Yankees with their pick in the 36th round of the 2019 Major League Baseball Amateur Draft.
Semmel signed with the Yankees last July, appearing in six games with the Yankees’ Gulf Coast League affiliate.
During the fall and winter, Semmel was training nearly every day at Overdrive in Bobby Valentine’s Sports Academy in Stamford.
This spring at training camp, Semmel had spent his time working on his pitching mechanics and was just about to start throwing bullpen sessions when the news came down that all baseball seasons were being suspended.
“It was my first spring training and I was ready to get after it,” Semmel said. “Since I am so young, they wanted me to focus on my mechanics rather than throwing in the bullpen or in any games, yet. I was scheduled to throw my first bullpen a couple of days after we got shut down.”
Semmel would have stayed in Tampa for extended spring training before heading to a short-season team either in Staten Island or Pulaski, VA.
With uncertainty in the air as the coronavirus began spreading in the United States, Semmel was part of a conference call telling players that a Yankees’ minor league player and a clubhouse attendant had contracted the virus.
That meant Semmel and his teammates had to be quarantined in a Tampa hotel for 14 days before they could be cleared to leave.
It was there he learned that the season was being suspended.
Semmel roomed with two other players in the hotel and nobody in the quarantine showed any symptoms, allowing them to leave after the 14 days were up.
“We have no idea when we are going back,” Semmel said. “I know that everyone is doing the same thing right now and everybody wants to get back. Right now, me and my family are healthy and all I can do is wait. I am pretty bored being home, though.”
Semmel’s story is similar to that of thousands of baseball players, right now.
Instead of being on the field where they belong, they are home like everybody else.
Waiting for baseball.