.:Manheim Township Legion Baseball:.

Fantastic freshman
By Jason Guarente
Lancaster New Era

Published: May 04, 2004 2:12 PM EST

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Austin Gallagher settled into the box for batting practice. With game time approaching, he knew he would only get a few swings.After doing next to nothing to get loose, his first cut sent a line drive into the right-center field gap. Next came a screamer straight up the middle. Then a hard ground ball down the first-base line. After a couple of mile-high popups, Gallagher really connected.

His final swing was a head turner. The ball sailed over the 360-foot sign on the right field fence and toward a road that runs behind the baseball field at Hempfield High. It came to a harmless stop near a moving car, whose passengers probably had no idea that one of the fast-rising sluggers in the Lancaster-Lebanon League just came reasonably close to smashing their window.

If you'd never watched Gallagher hit before, you could reach an immediate conclusion: This kid is special.

.000*** At 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, Gallagher just looks like a ballplayer. It's evident from the way he wears his cap with his sunglasses resting on the bill to the way he confidently strolls from the on-deck circle to the plate.

Fate has smiled on him. He has the drive, the genes and the body to excel at his favorite sport. The Manheim Township freshman is the son of Glenn Gallagher, a former minor leaguer who now coaches at Millersville. Austin has spent his entire life near the game, soaking up priceless bits of knowledge and taking countless cuts in the cage.

When he first started playing, he was a pesky, speedy middle infielder. Then came a growth spurt that turned him from pesky to powerful. He has been an imposing figure ever since.

One day, when Austin was in the fifth grade, Glenn brought home a new aluminum bat for him to use. Austin had been practicing with an old hand-me-down model, but this new bat opened his eyes to a new world. When he made contact, the ball just flew. Austin couldn't believe it.

"From that moment on,'' he says, "I loved to hit.'' Gallagher's growing desire was nurtured by his father, who has constantly pushed him to improve and to fight complacency. Austin would hit home runs and Glenn would encourage him to concentrate more on hitting line drives. He didn't want his son to become homer happy. He wanted him to work on fundamentals.

"There's always somebody out there a lot better than you,'' Glenn would say.

Austin listened and he believed it.

.000*** By the time he stepped onto a varsity field at Township, Gallagher was a prodigy. In Junior Midget ball last summer, the left-handed batter hit over 30 home runs in 35 games.

Township coach Bill Sassaman thought so much of his new slugger, he inserted him straight into the cleanup spot and played him at both third base and shortstop.

"Austin is very accelerated with the bat,'' Sassaman says. "He has the most power of any hitter on our team, which is not too shabby considering we have Dane Yoder and Brett Conway -- two seasoned juniors who can hit the ball.'' Once the season began, something strange happened to Gallagher. He stopped hitting. For a 10-game stretch, the player who was always extraordinary suddenly looked ordinary.

Gallagher had four singles and a double in his first 24 at-bats. Even his hits weren't the kind of explosive line drives he was used to smashing. Sassaman dropped his premier power man to eighth in the lineup.

The prodigy was in a slump.

"Coach had high expectations for me,'' Gallagher says. "I didn't step up the way myself, the coaches and the other players thought I would.

"Going 0-for-3 and 0-for-4 was something I haven't done much in my career.'' Despite facing his first adversity as a hitter, Gallagher never panicked. Baseball is filled with guys in slumps. Gallagher understood this because he has always been around the game.

"He has been comfortable from Day 1 of tryouts,'' Sassaman says. "He has an incredible amount of confidence that he can perform at the varsity level.'' Soon, those breaking pitches that had Gallagher off-balance didn't seem so difficult to hit. Gallagher stopped jumping at the ball and started relaxing and waiting for it to get to him.

After his 5-for-24 start, he smacked 10 hits in 14 at-bats, including three home runs. Heading into Friday's game with Hempfield, he was hitting .366 and was second on the team with 13 RBIs and 16 runs scored. Those are exceptional numbers for a freshman.

"Nothing that's happened this season has really fazed him,'' Sassaman says.

.000*** What impresses Township's coach most is Gallagher's ability to hit with power to left field. After 15 high school games, Sassaman compares his freshman to another superstar prep player who recently passed through Lancaster County.

"How many kids in their senior year can hit opposite field home runs?'' Sassaman says. "To do that as a ninth grader is unheard of. The last ninth grader I saw do that was Aaron Herr.'' Herr, the son of former big leaguer Tom Herr, was a first-round draft pick out of Hempfield by the Atlanta Braves in 2000. He's now playing Double-A ball.

Hempfield coach Tom Getz believes Herr was better than Gallagher at a comparable stage, but realizes Gallagher has potential rarely seen at his age.

"He's got all the tools,'' Getz says. "He's going to be scary when his body catches up to his frame.'' Gallagher figures to grow another inch or two. Once he matures physically, he's going to become even stronger. How far will he hit the ball then? Gallagher is a three-sport athlete and he says he'll continue to play all three. He could be the starting varsity quarterback at Township in the fall and he's a center on the basketball team. Baseball, however, is his future.

"Five years from now, I see him playing Division I or minor league ball,'' Sassaman says. "He has a very good head and he has incredible baseball savvy.'' When you talk to him, Gallagher doesn't come across like most 15-year-olds. He's engaging, mature beyond his years. When he says his goal is to get drafted out of high school, it doesn't sound like a schoolboy fantasy.

"That's what I'm shooting for,'' he says. "Once you know what you want, that's when you go out and get it.''

Gallagher's dream has something in common with that right-field fence at Hempfield High. For this talented freshman, it's definitely within reach.

Source: Lancaster New Era