By Caitlin Schwartz
If you get the chance to speak to high school baseball player Logan Shore from Coon Rapids, Minnesota he might not be different from what you would expect.
“Can I call you back in fifteen minutes?” Shore asks when answering a phone call requesting an interview about the recent verbal commitment that he’s made to attend the University of Florida in 2013. “I’m about to pick my sister up from church.”
Right away, it’s obvious that Shore has a much more down-to-earth attitude than one may expect from someone who has just aligned himself with the NCAA runner-up Florida Gators. Still, this probably isn’t the last time that you’ll be surprised when speaking to Logan Shore.
At six-foot-three and one-hundred-ninety-three pounds, seventeen-year-old Logan Shore’s size alone sets him apart from the other baseball players his age. He throws from his right at speeds that reach the low nineties, and his strength and consistency at the plate make him a force to be reckoned with for any batter that he encounters. But if you ask the Coon Rapids High School junior what he thinks his biggest strength is, he’ll give you a different, more introspective answer.
“I have mental strength, and that helps me,” says Shore. “I never really get nervous when I play or I pitch. When I was pitching in a game that we played against Puerto Rico, the first guy that I was pitching to walked, the next guy bunted, and then the next guy got out on an error. I think that that kind of stuff discourages a lot of pitchers, but I don’t let it bother me. I stayed calm, and struck out the next two guys.”
Shore began to make his mark with USSSA at the USSSA All-American Games in 2010. There, he was named a First Team All-American, and subsequently offered a spot on the USSSA National Team in 2011. Shore deepened his footprint with USSSA this past summer when he and the National Team, along with Nation Team head Coach DJ Wabick, won the USSSA Gold Medal Games, a tournament where Shore was awarded with the title of MVP.
“It was a really fun experience down in Kissimmee,” Shore says of the 2011 USSSA Gold Medal Games. “I’d never played against kids who spoke different languages before, so that was a great experience. It was cool to be around kids with so much talent. It was cool to win the whole thing.”
Shore will play for the USSSA again in the summer of 2012, competing with the High School National Varsity Team Internationally in a tournament expected to be located in Italy, France, or the Czech Republic.
“I’m looking forward to playing against kids from other countries again,” says Shore. “They have a different style. They’re not as intense about everything, and obviously they communicate differently than we do.”
This summer’s national tournament will be a great chance for Shore to work on the areas that he plans to develop prior to 2013.
“By the time I get there,” Shore says of his pre-college goals, “I want to be playing two ways. I want to improve my hitting and my in fielding, since I play third base. I also want to work on my slider, like, improve my sharpness. Other than that, I think I could just improve my mechanics.”
Shore, who on top of baseball likes to play hockey, ping-pong, and cook (he says that he can make a mean chocolate soufflé), is intent on making these plans into a reality by the time he starts college in 2013, as he doesn’t plan to squander the opportunity to play at his dream school.
“Florida has always been my favorite school,” says Shore. “I went to the College World Series with my mom in Nebraska last June, and watching the players and the coaching staff got me even more interested in the school.”
Although Shore plans to practice and improve, he also plans to squeeze in other activities to keep him busy before starting his college career. He will continue to spearhead the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at his school (he started the club along with his father last year), focus on maintaining his excellent grades (he has a 3.9 grade point average), and spend family time with his father Lance, his mother Cindi, and his younger sister Riley. Other than all of that, Shore has one more thing that he would like to see happen this year.
“There was no snow on Christmas this year”, says Shore. “It was kind of disappointing, because we like to play outdoor hockey, but there was no frozen ice to play on. I like sledding too, and we couldn’t do that over the break. It’s been so warm here.”
Here’s hoping for gold abroad in the summer and snow in Minnesota in the winter for future Florida Gator Logan Shore in 2012.
See Logan’s Page on USSSAAllAmerican.com
See Logan’s Profile & Stats on USSSA.com