MLB

Oakland A’s Sign a Fan After Seeing Him Throwing HEAT in Stadium Speed Pitch Challenge

USA Today – Baseball fan Nathan Patterson lit up the speed-pitch radar booth at Coors Field a few weeks ago while attending a game with his brother. Now, he has signed a contract with a Major League Baseball team.

Patterson casually threw a 96-mph fastball at a Colorado Rockies game July 15, and on Thursday, the Oakland A’s made his dream come true as the 23-year-old signed a contract with the club.

The backstory makes Patterson’s journey even more epic. He played high school baseball but never pursued it in college, but he started taking baseball seriously again last August. He originally caught the A’s attention at a Nashville Sounds game (the team’s Triple-A affiliate at the time) when he threw 96 mph there as well…He was injured in a car accident in December and needed surgery. But Patterson was resilient, kept training and stayed sharp in a rec league.

This is literally a movie plot except if you tried to get this made they’d laugh you out the fucking door saying we already made this movie.

As much as the hater in me wants to knock a guy for falling ass backwards into a major league contract (and he’s clearly over the line)…

Despite all that, you can’t lie this is impressive AF. You ever try one of those speed pitch radar booths at a game? Incredibly humbling. Everyone likes to think they’re just a tick below a professional athlete (“yea well I played varsity my senior year in high school but wanted to focus on my studies in college”) until you get in front of the radar gun and can barely top 60 mph. Thats not even fast enough to be considered a knuckleballer in the pros so for you to be crow hopping and blowing out a shoulder just to hit 62 mph ain’t gonna cut it.

So props to this guy for coming out of the clouds to earn a contract with the A’s and, at least for a little while, getting out of the rate race that is cube life.

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