GLENDALE, Ariz. — Jeff Wahlberg wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
He was holding tryouts for Little League Baseball and found this big kid attending his workouts.
After weeks of persuasion, the child’s parents finally gave it a try.
That was Zach Eady, who years later became one of the most promising college basketball players in the nation and a 7-foot-4 superstar center at Purdue University.
But back then, growing up in a small Canadian neighborhood called Leaside in Toronto, his sport of choice was baseball, which he started playing at the age of eight.
For the next seven years, Wahlberg coached Eadie at the North Toronto Baseball Club.
“The whole experience was truly amazing. Other than my son and nephew who were on the team, I will never forget Zach,” he said. “He was a very memorable baseball player. He wasn’t the most talented guy, but he was the biggest, strongest guy. … He hit the ball hard, and he was great at pitching, shortstop, center field. He would run away. He never hit the ball in the air, always on the ground. But it was so difficult and almost dangerous that no one stepped in front of it.”
Wahlberg added: “He was literally a giant among his children.”
He was a better first baseman and pitcher than anyone else.
Eric Stickney, one of the youth baseball coaches who brought Edie to Leeside Baseball, was required to bring Edie’s birth certificate to games to prove his age.
No one could believe that a child so big could be so young.
By the time he was 14 years old, he had improved to 6 wins and 10 losses, and his pitching ability became his strength.
He threw a heavy ball in the mid-80s and could stand over batters with his long arms.
Stickney and Wahlberg believed he could play at the Division I level.
No one knew what would happen from there.
“Early on, he was a better hitter. But he was definitely a better pitcher when he was 13, 14, 15,” Wahlberg said. “He went to IMG Academy for basketball. To be honest, if he had gone to IMG Academy for baseball, he would have earned a Division 1 scholarship in baseball. think.… [If he stuck with baseball] He’s in his fourth year at a Division 1 school and I think MLB teams are taking notice of him. It’s clear he made the right choice in basketball.But if he put all the eggs in there [baseball] For basketball, he would have been in the same position. ”
As Edie continued to grow, the same questions continued to arise. “Why didn’t he play basketball?”
Eadie once said he didn’t want to play because that’s what all the tall guys in Canada do.
However, as he got older, it became harder to continue playing baseball, and the questions only increased in frequency.
“I had a lot of things going on, but mainly shoulder issues. In a way, I felt like I transcended baseball,” Eadie said as Purdue prepares to play North Carolina State in the Final Four on Saturday. said Thursday. “I lost strength in my shoulders. I was throwing too much to develop my muscles. [doctors] That’s what he said. His arm hurt every time he threw. I thought maybe it wouldn’t go into my long-term plans as much as I expected. …It was fun to hit, but it got too big to hit. ”
So he set his sights on the hardwood, enrolling on the varsity team as a sophomore at Leaside High School.
When Eadie broke the news to another baseball coach, Todd Betts, he burst into tears.
Betts responded, “Get me a ticket to play against the Raptors someday.”
He ended up attending powerhouse IMG Academy in Florida and then Purdue.
Last weekend, he led the Boilermakers to their first Final Four appearance since 1980 with a 40-point, 16-rebound performance against Tennessee.
He will soon become the first consensus winner of back-to-back National Player of the Year awards since Ralph Sampson in 1982-83 and is projected to be a first-round pick in the NBA Draft.
Coaches still fondly remember his talent on the diamond, but it’s clear he made the right choice in giving up on his baseball dreams.
Betts recalled that Eadie had 10 strikeouts and hit a home run in his last game with him.
He was beginning to attract the attention of college baseball coaches.
Betts also credits baseball with helping him grow in his chosen sport.
“On ESPN, they were talking about how good his hand-eye coordination is. Where do you think he got that from?” Betts said. “It helped him with his basketball. I know that.”
