Hurley helped a star help the kids
Vancouver Canadians outfielder worked with 2013 NL MVP McCutchen at Florida camp
This story about major league stars being good guys is brought to you by Vancouver Canadians outfielder Sean Hurley.
Hurley, 23, trained two winters ago at the International Management Group Academy in Bradenton, Fla., which is near his family’s home in Sarasota.
IMG is a massive company. It’s a heavy hitter in the sports agent business. As you might expect, Hurley’s workout group included some highly recognizable names, most notably Pittsburgh Pirates standout outfielder Andrew McCutchen.
IMG’s venue in Bradenton also tutors tennis, football, basketball and golf athletes. It’s easy to guess that it’s a pricey endeavour for most. Hurley said there were some members of his group who were going to pull out early from their stay because it was getting too expensive.
He wouldn’t get into names or dollar amounts, but he did say that McCutchen and Pirates infielder Pedro Alvarez stepped in and paid their bills so that they could remain for their scheduled stint.
“They did it just because they knew they could,” Hurley said. There’s more. McCutchen, 28, runs a baseball camp for kids in his hometown of Fort Meade, Fla., every winter. The 2013 National League most valuable player brought in Hurley and eight other young pros to help him work the clinic two years ago.
“I didn’t know what to expect, but to see the look in these young kids’ eyes when we were there, helping them to get better, was unbelievable,” said the six-foot-four, 235-pound Hurley, a right-handed hitter. “I learned a lot. It wasn’t just the love for baseball and for other people with McCutchen, but his love for God.
“His dedication for what he did and how he went about his business was second to none for me. When you get a text from Andrew McCutchen saying, ‘Thank you for working my camp,’ it’s hard to know exactly what to do.”
It’s far from his only brush with big leaguers, though. The Toronto Blue Jays, Vancouver’s parent club, drafted Hurley in the 24th round of the 2013 amateur draft out of Central Arizona junior college. Prior to that, he had been a standout player at Sarasota High.
He counts Scooter Gennett, 25, who’s in the midst of his third season with the Milwaukee Brewers, as a good friend. They met in Sarasota.
Casey Kelly, 25, a pitcher in the San Diego Padres organization, also went to the school during Hurley’s time. Hurley, then in Grade 9, talks about being thrust into starting at quarterback for the senior team at Sarasota because Kelly was sidelined with a staph infection.
Ian Desmond, 29, who’s a shortstop with the Washington Nationals, was at Sarasota just before Hurley’s group.
They don’t win the state title every year, though.
“We made it to the regional final two years in a row,” said Hurley, whose team lost both times to a Tampa squad led by Jose Fernandez, the ace of the Miami Marlins currently trying to rally from Tommy John surgery.