The man with the golden arm
Ex-UConn coach Baylock throws 400 pitches a day as ECSU volunteer assistant
MANSFIELD — Set to add to a lifetime pitch count that is probably approaching 2.5 million, Andy Baylock steps onto a platform at Eastern Baseball Stadium, helmet pulled over his brow, mask dangling beneath his chin.
Much of baseball’s magic sparkles in settings like this, wedged into the day-to-day routines that the sport demands and that Baylock, the long “retired” UConn coach, has drawn such joy and purpose from for parts of seven decades.
A few weeks shy of his 83rd birthday and a volunteer assistant on coach Brian Hamm’s Eastern Connecticut staff, Baylock uses his seemingly bionic right arm to whiz fastballs toward college kids he still relates to through the bond of a sport. AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” blares from stadium speakers as Baylock adds to the soundtrack of his life, ball meeting aluminum bat time and again. Ping … ping … ping.
“Did you see me warm up?” Baylock says proudly between chugs of water, sitting in the dugout after throwing about 200 pitches. “Nothing. First pitch, right down the middle. It’s a gift.”
Baylock never warms up. He’s never had a shoulder or elbow injury, either. Even shoulder or elbow soreness is a foreign concept to Baylock, the Huskies’ coach in 19802003 who, in a variety of capacities since the early 1960s, has left cleat
prints on diamonds the world over.
Consider the prevalence of reconstructive arm surgeries that have come to define the sport. It’s possible that Baylock has thrown a baseball more times than any human over the past 70 years, yet he’s never so much as needed an ice pack. Dr. Michael Joyce, an orthopedic team surgeon at UConn, calls him a freak of nature.
Discussing this, Baylock’s mind darts to the Red Sox game the night before. Matt Barnes, a UConn All-American in 2011, struck out the side in the ninth inning with the score tied against the Tigers but was pulled after 15 pitches. Garrett Whitlock gave up three runs in the 10th.
“It’s just, the name of the game is to win,” Baylock says. “Barnes comes in, shuts them down, they go to extra innings. They bring this other guy in and they lose. Isn’t the name of the game to win? Throw another freaking inning, man!”
Baylock shakes his head. He groans.
“Pitch counts,” he says, dismissively. “I go by hour counts.”
Many machines do. Hour by hour, day by day, year by year, decade by decade, Baylock has continued on his chosen path, one of baseball and its people, its competition, its dependability. He found the luck or wisdom, or both, at an early age to identify a source of personal and professional happiness, and he’s not doing much different in 2021 than he was in the blackand-white era of his beginnings.
Why does he keep coming back to the field? “Because I learn,” he says. Because he can still teach, too.
“I pick things up. And what they don’t have, I try to give to them.”
Hamm enters the dugout and asks, “You good to go?”
Baylock begins the type of walk he has made countless times, this one to the batting cages beyond left field where more hitters wait. In a light tower above is a large nest that Eastern players and coaches have watched birds build one stick at a time over the past couple of months. Now those birds sit overlooking practice as players put the finishing touches on their own project.
It’s symbolic. The Warriors were NCAA Division III national champions under Bill Holowaty, a dear friend of Baylock’s, in 1982, ’90, ’98 and 2002. Hamm, in his second season, is trying to build the program back to those lofty standards, and he’s off to a good start. Eastern is 29-4, Little East Conference champion and ranked No. 15 in the nation by d3baseball.com. The LEC Tournament begins Thursday, and the NCAA Tournament follows.
Baylock watches games from a front-row seat. This is a wonderful partnership, with college players tapping into Baylock’s experience and Baylock feeling part of something by absorbing players’ hopeful energy.
“You think about how different it is in this day and age, how social media and technology have just sped up the differences in generations,” Hamm said. “For him to still be able to communicate to these guys goes to show you the type of quality person he is.”
At the cages, sophomore infielder Mark Bagdasarian steps to the plate and says, “How’s the wing?”
Baylock, about 350 pitches in, chugs more water and rises from a metal folding chair.
“It’s the butt that’s tired,” he says. “The wing never hurts.”
After about 20 swings, with Baylock mixing in some curve balls, Bagdasarian says, “He loves coming here, and we love having him. He’s throwing hundreds of pitches a day for us, not for himself.”
Baylock needs this, too, though — the connection, the activity, something to invest in. Baseball has a way of tying together the days that start with a 6:15 a.m. wakeup, often followed by breakfast at Pine Acres Restaurant in Chaplin.
“Today, ooh,” he said. “Cheeseburg omelettes.”
Baylock watches a Catholic mass on TV from 8-9, reads the newspaper for an hour, then watches another mass at 10.
“Because the older you get, you’ve got to get closer,” Baylock said, smiling and pointing skyward. “I’d like to get in.”
As UConn’s director of football alumni and community affairs, he spends a few hours working projects related to that job, sometimes on the Storrs campus — previously with interruptions for coffee and a muffin with another UConn legend, Dee Rowe, who died in January. A few days a week this time of year, Baylock heads to Eastern practice around 2 p.m. He also threw batting practice for the minor league teams based in Norwich for 18 years.
Baylock mows a handful of lawns in his Mansfield neighborhood about twice a week with a 22-inch mower. At dinner time, he microwaves frozen meals: “Because I don’t know how to turn on an oven. Three minutes, ding, done. Make a little salad, turn on the news, and usually I’ll take a ride over to Ashford Dairy Bar for a soft-serve.”
The routine, the repetition. The purpose, simplicity, happiness.
“Sucks, though, being alone,” Baylock said. “Mama Bear was a big part of my life.”
Baylock’s wife of 52 years, Barbara, died in 2015.
He still has baseball, the sport that offers something new every day even to those who have spent a lifetime at the field.
Baylock grew up in New Britain and played baseball and basketball at Central Connecticut. He was then a graduate baseball assistant at Michigan in 1961-62, and the football coach at East Catholic High in Manchester in 1962-64. At UConn, he was a baseball assistant for 16 years before beginning his 24-year run as head coach. He retired with 556 victories. He is a member of eight halls of fame. If there were a storytelling hall of fame, he’d be in nine.
“I was chair of the Division I All-American committee for 22 years with Dr. Bobby Brown and all those big-timers,” Baylock said. “Dean Smith was on there. We made him sit in the hallway, though, because he wanted to smoke all the time.”
Baylock, a UConn football assistant in the 1960s and ’70s, began working with that program again in 2005.
“I love being around the kids,” Baylock said. “It’s funny, one big dude, he comes up to me and says, ‘Coach B, how old are you?’ I said, ‘Age makes no difference. I can still kick your butt.’ They’re puppies, these young kids.”
So many of his stories revolve around throwing batting practice, from UConn to Eastern and all the stops in between: the Cape Cod League, time spent developing Canadian players in New Brunswick, a stint working with the Dutch national team. Lou Pavlovich, longtime editor of Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, estimated in 2018 that Baylock had thrown about 2.25 million pitches in his life.
“I did a home run derby in Omaha at the College World Series,” Baylock said. “The whole thing was on national TV. Then I had to run in the dugout and put my shirt and tie on to introduce the national player of the year because I was chair of the All-American selection committee.” That was in the 1990s. Twice in the 1980s, Baylock was the pitching coach for the U.S. senior national team.
“Once with Team USA, I threw every day for seven weeks,” Baylock said. “I never wore out my arm. But I wore out a pair of shoes.”
As Baylock kept chatting, he seemed to be taking stock of his experiences.
“I haven’t been cheated on anything,” he said.
Then he walked away, crossing the field and turning back to look at the diamond before exiting through a gate beyond the third-base dugout — another 400 pitches delivered, that baseball thread still woven tightly into his colorful life like the red stitching into a ball.
“I love being around the kids. It’s funny, one big dude, he comes up to me and says, ‘Coach B, how old are you?’ I said, ‘Age makes no difference. I can still kick your butt.’ ”
— Former UConn baseball coach Andy Baylock