Huntsville pitcher on the right path to achieve baseball dreams

Hard work and perseverance combined with natural ability and desire will serve anyone well in any profession.

It’s these foundational blocks that have separated Huntsville’s Archer Westgarth from the pack throughout the years as a baseball pitcher. And the 18-year-old is hoping to continue building on that foundation all the way to the Major Leagues.

But first, he’s grinding away in California for a team associated with College of the Desert, putting in reps, getting starts against high level talent in his age bracket, and playing as much baseball as possible during what is pretty much a gap year between high school and junior college.

Next year Westgarth will be heading to Morton College in Chicago to on a full two-year school program complete with academic courses and, obviously, baseball. He took some time to chat with Muskoka Unlimited via video chat from his dorm room – complete with the Canadian flag hanging proudly on his wall.

“After the two years at a junior college, you can be drafted and hopefully signed by an MLB team (though likely it would mean playing in the minors at first),” explains Westgarth. “Or you can transfer to a four-year program at a NCAA Division I school.”

Westgarth says he’s had his eye on some big southern schools like Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Florida, and Florida State as potentials for the next stop in his career after Morton.

“I would prefer to finish out four years of college, that’s a safer bet for me,” says Westgarth. “Obviously my dream is to play professional baseball and that’s what I’m going to try my best to do. But, either way, I would like to have a full college education.”

He may have a long way to go still, but Westgarth has come a long way since first trying out baseball when he was nine years old after seeing the Toronto Blue Jays pennant run in 2015.

“I started watching baseball and it was exciting,” he says. “It was the first time I had seen a Toronto team do well. That’s probably why I got into it. It inspired me.”

Once he picked up a baseball, he was hooked. Westgarth started playing baseball in the Huntsville house league system, but quickly realized he had a natural love and ability, eventually trying out for the rep team.

“I remember I didn’t make it the first year trying out,” recalls Westgarth. “The next year, I got cut and replaced by another player. The first two years I tried out for rep baseball, I didn’t make the team.”

The next year, Westgarth made it and started almost every game in various roles – pitcher, infielder mainly – and batted over .400.

“Just because I got cut, I didn’t want to give up and find something else, I just wanted to keep playing,” he recalls. “If it’s something you enjoy, there’s going to be ups and downs, you just have to push through.”

Life on the mound

A pitcher through and through, Westgarth started focusing on the position in Grade 11. He’s since learned how to properly throw several pitches, now featuring five in his arsenal: a four-seam fastball, two-seam fastball, curveball, slider, and change-up.

He says there is a distinct feeling of being in control when on the mound. It’s why he loves being a pitcher.

“You’re on the mound and you’re competing with the guy at the plate and you’re trying to do your best,” explains Westgarth. “That’s the best feeling, being competitive and winning those battles. You look at the catcher behind the plate and the guy in the batter’s box and you want to get a fastball by him or get a really good pitch. It’s the best feeling when you win a battle with that guy.”

While being a pitcher can provide that sensation of control and dominance, it comes with more pressure that the other positions. Though in team sports the general motto is everyone wins or loses together, a baseball pitcher is the exception to the rule.

Pitchers have an abnormal control of the result in a team sport and handling stressful situations is a part of the job. It could be needing outs to strand men on base, bouncing back after giving up a run to avoid a big inning, or choosing the right pitches at the right time.

“When I first got into competitive baseball and you get out there and you’re shaking … it’s intense,” says Westgarth about the pressure of being on the mound. “You’re scared, you don’t want to mess up. But you got to just step on the mound and understand that if I throw this guy a good pitch and he just beats my pitch, I did what I could do.”

He has a trick to calm himself: “For me, it’s just zone into the catcher, zone in to one-on-one with the catcher – there’s a lot going on in the field – but you just have to put your focus on one thing and battle it out.”

Solid advice for aspiring ball players

Westgarth offers some sound advice for those looking to go as far as possible in baseball. One important thing is to make sure to be serious about academics because not all sports scholarships are free rides, so having an academic scholarship comes in handy.

As well, quality programs want to see athletes with good grades to go with their sports abilities. However, it also comes down to focusing on achieving one’s goals. He is a great example of a small-town Canadian kid who got noticed by scouts – it wasn’t an accident.

“You gotta be a grinder, you gotta go out everyday and try your best every day,” says Westgarth. “If you’re good enough and work hard, colleges are going to find you. But you must make sure you’re putting yourself out there either on social media or recruiting platforms.”

Where Westgarth’s career takes him remains to be seen, but as long as he keeps up the good work ethic and focus, the sky’s the limit.