Published: Sept. 26, 2014
Finding comfort
Hartford Hawks’ Drew Palmer named inaugural Daily News
Amateur Baseball Player of the Year
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
Drew Palmer was a bit out of his comfort zone when he joined
the Hartford Hawks baseball team this summer. He’d grown up using mostly
aluminum bats or something similar, but never had he used a wooden bat, at
least not in a competitive environment.
He had no choice if he wanted to stick around.
“The game of baseball is about adjustments,” Palmer said.
“It was just a little adjustment I had to make.”
The adjustment?
“You have to be more selective at the plate,” Palmer said.
That one adjustment paid big dividends for the Hawks this
summer.
Palmer, a 2013 Hartford Union graduate, was selected as the
inaugural Daily News Area Amateur Baseball Player of the Year.
The area teams include the Hawks, the West Bend 7 UP, the
West Bend Benders, the Slinger Stingers and the Kewaskum A’s.
“I’m definitely really excited,” Palmer said. “To get this
honor, it means so much.”
Palmer batted .372 for the season, his first in a wood bat
league, with 19 extra-base hits, including five home runs and 35 RBIs. He also
batted .395 in Rock River League games with a .417 on-base percentage. He led
the league in extra-base hits (16) and slugging percentage (.679).
Palmer made the Tri-County All-League team.
“You could tell he learned from each at-bat and would take
constructive criticism very easily,” Hawks manager Ben Kluck said. “He would
even apply things he’d see and you could see him make the changes from each
at-bat to the next at-bat.
“He always had drive to be better.”
Kluck coached Palmer during Palmer’s sophomore year at
Hartford.
“He was pretty small yet,” Kluck recalled. “He hadn’t really
built up yet, but he had a very nice swing and was able to go the other way
with the outside pitch, which at an early age is rare to see.”
Palmer admitted it was an odd feeling using the wood bat.
But he worked at it. And the easiest solution he discovered was he found a wood
bat that had a similar feeling to the aluminum bats he was accustomed to using.
“I realized they were different the first time I used them,”
Palmer said. “It took a couple weeks. That’s when I realized that my approach
had to be a little different.”
Kluck believed Palmer got into the swing of using a wood bat
sooner than Palmer realized it.
“We knew he had a nice bat,” Kluck said. “We didn’t know how
quickly he would adjust to this level. I think he surprised us and maybe he
surprised himself with how quickly he was able to be successful.”
Once he got used to it, Palmer was one of the most
consistent hitters in the Rock River, a plus for the Hawks.
“We had always struggled with our power position, the 3-4-5
spots,” Kluck said. “We never really had a big stick on the team. Watching him
in (American) Legion the year before and just seeing how much he bulked up, we
thought he could really help us in one of those spots. He filled one of our
biggest weaknesses.”
By the third or fourth game of the season, Kluck said you
could notice Palmer was catching on.
“The wood bat is a lot less forgiving,” Kluck said. “You can
miss on a pitch with aluminum bat and still be rewarded whereas the wood it’s
not as forgiving. You’ve got to hit it on the sweet spot. It’s a big adjustment
for players. It’s rare you find someone who’s able to do it right away.”
The Hawks went into the 2014 season defending a league
championship. Palmer knew it was going to be a challenge to work his way into
the regular rotation.
“I was hoping to get some playing time,” Palmer said. “I
just made the most of the opportunities at the start and I’m glad I did.
“I knew coming in it was going to be difficult, playing time
wasn’t going to be guaranteed,” he added. “I wanted to help as much I could.”
Palmer is a member of the baseball team at Trine University
in Angola, Indiana. Going into the summer, Palmer said he wanted to reduce the
length of hitting slumps. The slumps he had, which are common in baseball, came
around once or twice a season, but they were long, which hurt his confidence at
times.
But his no-quit attitude at the plate has transformed him
into a consistent hitter.
“If he can come back and pick up where he left off, that’s
all we can ask for,” Kluck said. “He’s an MVP candidate going into the banquet.
“He’s one of the top hitters in the league, but there are
still things he can improve on. He’s going to get better.”
Palmer added, “I always knew I was capable of being a .400
hitter. I just didn’t take advantage of the opportunities like I did this
summer.”
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