“The Rookie” visits “Field of Dreams”

LIMEPORT -- There aren't going to be many arguments about the fact that Limeport Stadium is the Lehigh Valley's version of the 1989 movie, "Field of Dreams".

Yes, there was a Tri-County baseball game played Sunday night at the fabled stadium, and the Limeport Bulls held on to defeat the Gabelsville Owls 3-2. But the buzz around the stadium focused on Limeport's starting pitcher, Nate Buttenfield, a 6-foot-7-inch right-handed pitcher who was throwing 94 mph fastballs in the top of the first inning and continued throwing 90+ mph fastballs for five innings.

However, this budding story actually began earlier in the week. And "The Buttenfield Story" sounds like a script much closer to the 2002 movie "The Rookie", the story about Jim Wilson, a teacher and high school baseball coach who made his major-league debut for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on September 18, 1999 at age 35 as a left-handed pitcher.

Wilson did play some minor-league baseball as he was selected fourth overall in the January portion of baseball's amateur draft in 1983. He suffered several arm injuries in the minor leagues, and was released during the 1987 season. For anyone who has seen the movie, the short story is Wilson made a promise to his high school team that if his team made the district playoffs, he would try out for a major league baseball team, which he did and as it turned out, he threw 98 mph at a tryout and the rest as they say, is history.

Flash ahead to June of 2007, and Buttenfield, a 30-year old teacher and first-year head baseball coach at North Hills High School in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Buttenfield got his high school baseball team to the district playoffs on the final game of the 2007 regular season as his Indians' squad qualified for the playoffs for the first time in five years.

Hmmm. Sounding familiar?

But how in the heck did Buttenfield end up at Limeport Stadium Sunday night, pitching a Tri-County League baseball game for the Limeport Bulls?

Hollywood script writers, start typing. You may have a possible sequel:

"The Rookie, Part 2".

What we know is that Buttenfield is a 1999 IUP grad who pitched briefly in the Frontier League for the Canton Crocodiles, where he posted an 0-3 record with a 7.07 ERA. Then he seemingly dropped off the baseball map, never to be seen again.

Until this week.

Word has it that Buttenfield pitched in a MSBL (Men's Senior Baseball league) game last week and struck out every batter he faced. Yes, that is not a typo. Every batter he faced. Nobody put the ball in play against him. After the game, the players told him that he needs to go to a major league tryout. So Buttenfield went home, got on his computer, went to mlb.com, and did a search on major league tryouts and the first one he found was an open tryout this past Thursday near Philadelphia.

So Buttenfield drives across the state to the tryout, pitches to six batters, and nobody could hit him. But more importantly, the radar guns were displaying numbers rarely seen at an open tryout. In fact, the scouts thought their radar guns may have been malfunctioning. Every pitch was at 94 or 95 mph and on the juggs gun, he was hitting 97 and 98 mph. In fact, the scouts thought something was wrong, that perhaps too many guns too close to one another was causing a problem reading the pitches, so they put all the radar guns down but one, and the scouts all stood around the one radar gun pointed at Buttenfield.

Zoom. 95 mph. Zoom. 94 mph. Zoom. 95 mph.

Who was this guy and where did he come from? Was there a cornfield nearby?

So Brad Fidler, a full-time professional scout for the Major League Scouting Bureau (who doubles as Assistant Coach for the Limeport Bulls of the Tri-County League) decided to have Buttenfield throw for the Bulls against the Gabelsville Owls on Sunday night as a live audition for other professional scouts.

The stakes?

A professional baseball contract.

A few scouts wanted to sign Buttenfield immediately after Thursday's open tryout, but Fidler, a seasoned and respected scout, not knowing anything about the righty's background and finding out that Buttenfield was 30 years old after talking to him Thursday, recommended a second "tryout", and this one wouldn't be a 20-pitch outing with no umpires (like his open tryout), but a "live game" situation where scouts could see first-hand what Buttenfield could do for more than 20 pitches under game conditions.

And with the Gabelsville Owls on Limeport's schedule for Sunday night and the Bulls being in the midst of a tough four-game stretch coming off two straight losses, Limeport manager Dylan Dando welcomed the opportunity with open arms.

Buttenfield drove in from Pittsburgh Saturday night and stayed at a local hotel in preparation for his "audition". And sure enough, Buttenfield was hitting 94 mph in the first inning, getting two ground-outs to second and a strikeout for a 1-2-3 inning.

Buttenfield went on to throw close to 70 pitches in five innings, consistently throwing 92 mph fastballs, and he still hit 94 once in the fifth inning. He struck out seven and did not walk a batter, allowing just three singles in his five-inning stint.

One scout was overheard saying "Barry Bonds would not bat an eye if this guy was on a major-league mound throwing against him a month from now. He has major-league stuff".

In the sixth inning, Buttenfield was meeting with every scout in attendance one-on-one in an office underneath Limeport Stadium. Rumor is that he will be somewhere in the Los Angeles Dodgers' organization by the end of the week, although the Reds and Indians showed lots of interest, too.

Can Nate Buttenfield follow in the steps of Jim Wilson, the pitcher portrayed in the movie "The Rookie"?

Time will tell. But if Buttenfield does make it to the big-show, then what could possibly be a better place to launch that dream than beautiful Limeport Stadium?

Hollywood, stay tuned.

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Reprinted from Trico News dated Sunday, June 17, 2007