From afterthought to hero
Andrean grad Brosseau takes back roads to make it big with Tampa Bay Rays
Andrean baseball coach Dave Pishkur had a hunch that Mike Brosseau might get on the field against the Yankees in the final game of the AL Division Series on Oct. 9.
The Yankees bullpen is stocked with left-handed pitchers, and Brosseau hit .333 with four homers and 10 RBIs against lefties during the regular season for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Pishkur is a fixture at the Andrean football team’s home games, but the 59ers were on the road playing Kankakee Valley that night.
Pishkur settled in to watch his former player.
His instincts were right. Brosseau launched his nowfamous home run against Aroldis
Chapman at the end of a 10-pitch at-bat in the eighth inning to lead the Rays to a 2-1 victory.
When the ball left Brosseau’s bat, Pishkur started screaming at the television, “Get out, get out!”
After it drifted over the leftfield wall, Pishkur ran downstairs to high-five his son Mark, who was watching on a different TV.
Mark Pishkur and Brosseau played together on the 2010 Andrean team that won the state title and are best friends.
The fastball Brosseau hit was screaming to the plate at 100.2 mph. That was the second-fastest pitch hit for a home run in the postseason in the pitch-tracking era, which started in 2008, according to MLB.com.
It was a surreal moment for Brosseau, who finished at Andrean as an undersized, unheralded shortstop headed to Oakland University with a big dream that started when he was in high school.
To play major league baseball. Brosseau was 5 feet 10 and 140 pounds when he graduated from high school in 2012. He left Andrean with one career homer.
“I don’t remember much about it,” he said about that home run. “What I recall is it was a big deal.”
Back then, the dream didn’t register much for Pishkur, who has coached a litany of great players, like Zac Ryan, a pitcher in the Angels’ farm system, and Sean Manaea, a pitcher with the A’s who threw a no-hitter two years ago.
“He was a good player,”
Pishkur said of Brosseau. “I don’t know if anyone could realistically think he could make a run at it then.”
Turns out, Brosseau had a single-mindedness about baseball that was immeasurable.
In his final season at Oakland, Brosseau hit .355 with 10 homers, and he was a first-team all-conference selection.
By then, Brosseau had added roughly 60 pounds of muscle to his frame, and he started driving the ball.
Brosseau hoped he might be a late-round pick, but it didn’t happen.
He was a 5-foot-10, 200-pound infielder who was good but didn’t jump out at scouts because of his compact build and the fact that Oakland wasn’t a powerhouse.
It was a devastating time. He had no backup career plans.
“I was very disappointed,” he said. “It was the lowest part of my life. I had all my eggs in one basket. It was an eye-opening 24 hours.”
Brosseau got lucky a day after
the draft when the Rays signed him as a free agent for $1,000. They were just looking to fill out their system with another infielder.
He was, with all due respect, an after-thought.
Except Brosseau never viewed it that way.
He didn’t waste any time showing the Rays what he could do.
In 2017, playing with four teams in the Rays’ minor league
system, Brosseau had 14 homers and 84 RBIs.
He finished that year playing in Australia, hitting .427 with six homers and 32 RBIs.
In 2019, before the Rays called him up, Brosseau hit .304 with 16 homers and 60 RBIs for Triple-A Durham.
Brosseau rose through the system like a shooting star, learn
ing how to play every infield position and left field while knocking the cover off the ball. He had no choice. He knew he had to create value right away.
“You don’t have a lot of leverage when you go into baseball undrafted,” he said. “I had a small window. I had to be in full stride right away.”
Pishkur, who calls him “Mikey,” couldn’t be happier for Brosseau, who regularly stops by when he’s in town. Brosseau went 2 for 6 during the World Series, which the Dodgers won in six games.
“It’s remarkable he overcame all those obstacles to get where he’s at,” Pishkur said. “I’m really proud of him.”