IN FOCUS: INDIANS
Triston McKenzie has several dreams.
One is pitching professionally. The second is becoming a heart surgeon.
The 42nd pick in the 2015 Major League Baseball draft is living out the first dream with the Mahoning Valley (Niles, Ohio) Scrappers of the short-season New York-Penn League.
“Baseball is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said McKenzie, who attended Royal Palm Beach (Fla.) High and was committed to play baseball and study at Vanderbilt University. “Knowing I can go back to school and having the security of school being paid for, it wasn’t a hard decision (to choose baseball). I really wanted to be a heart surgeon, but I put that on hold for the moment.
“I grew up wanting to be a doctor, and I enjoy looking at the heart and (the idea of ) saving people’s lives. The heart is really interesting to me; it’s the soul of the body. Without the heart, nothing else works. I like to get into the middle of things, and the heart is in the middle of the things that run the body.”
McKenzie’s parents work in the medical field, though neither is a doctor. He has wanted to be a doctor since he was 8, he said, and a medical program he attended in middle school only added to his desire to help others.
“By 10 or 11, I was very interest- ed and deep into it,” McKenzie said. “It’s always been a dream of mine.”
In the meantime, he’s going through the New York-Penn League with surgical precision.