Danny Black has chosen to make a life out of the game of baseball.
The thirty-three year old is currently coaching in the Marlins organization, following a playing career that saw him reach a College World Series with Oklahoma as an amateur, and then Triple-A as a professional—a career that Black nearly walked away from as a senior in high school.
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Talented but undersized, Black’s time in the Northern California high school ranks did little to attract big-time college recruiters, or really any recruiters at all. As graduation neared, and with that came the end of an up and down high school career, the game he’d always played out of love didn’t seem to do as much for him as it had in the past.
“After my senior year I almost stopped playing,” said Black. “The fun part of it had started to wear off, which bothered me a lot because I couldn’t understand that feeling that I was having.”
Black credits a stint playing travel ball in the summer following his senior year, playing for fun and nothing else, to revive a love of the game in him enough to give baseball one last shot. At the behest of Ryan Giacomini, one of his travel ball teammates who had just finished his redshirt year at Feather River College in Quincy, California, Black chose to give baseball another shot, joining Giacomini in at the tiny junior college.
Talk about your all-time great calls, because after two years of developing his skills and maturing physically, Black went from a guy ready to leave baseball behind to a junior college star being courted by major Division 1 programs. However, Black doesn’t just look back on his time at Feather River as a stepping stone to, but a pivotal building block of his life. His prowess as a player improved, but under the tutelage of head coach Terry Baumgartner, Black learned the importance of work ethic and how to develop team chemistry.
“Time together,” said Black, when asked about what factors bond a team. “Failure, success, you have…
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