Thetford
Levin, 20, batted .333 (11-for-33) with a home run, seven RBIs, 13 runs scored and three stolen bases for the Oysters, who reached the semifinal round of the wooden-bat league’s double-elimination tournament before a loss to the Steamboat Storm.
Levin, a Thetford resident and Hanover High graduate, is a rising sophomore and infielder at Kenyon College, where he played in just one game as a freshman.
Levin also saw little playing time with Rocky Mountain this summer at first, but homered in his second appearance of the season — a go-ahead, two-run shot to help the Oysters to a 9-7 win over the Summit Extreme Black Diamonds — and went on to play in 19 games, including three of four in the postseason.
Levin exemplified the utility player’s role, suiting up at second base, third base, DH and in right field, according to second-year Rocky Mountain coach Robert Price.
“He’s quite a good defensive player, can play a lot of different positions,” said Price, a former left-handed pitcher at NCAA Division I Troy (Ala.) University. “He really came on strong over the last 15-20 games and showed some good versatility.”
Levin, who played a post-graduate year at Northfield-Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts before arriving at Kenyon, acknowledged the adjustment required while switching to the wooden bats of the Mountain West League from the metal sticks of NCAA play.
“I used to play summers for American Legion Post 22,” so it’s not like I’d never swung a wooden bat,” Levin said in an interview this week at the Thetford Elementary School baseball diamond. “That said, it always takes a little bit of getting used to. It’s a different feel.”
While he’d never before been to Colorado, Levin was quite comfortable with his housemate — his older brother, Casey, who’s lived in Grand Junction for several years. When Jordan wasn’t busy on the diamond, the siblings spent time enjoying the abundance of recreational opportunities in the Grand Junction area, which abuts the Colorado River and is known as the Grand Valley.
“It was kind of perfect, because I’d always wanted to see the Rocky Mountains and my brother was already living out there,” said Levin, who learned about the league through an assistant coach at Kenyon.
“We went mountain biking — he just got a new one, so I got to use his old one — and hiking at places like the Grand Mesa, which is this huge plateau.”
Despite limited playing time at the season’s outset, Levin maintained a positive attitude with the Oysters. The goal for him in Colorado was simple — to learn as much as possible — and Rocky Mountain’s coaches noticed.
“He’s one of those guys we call sponge players, because they like to learn and take everything you say into consideration,” Price said. “He’s not one of those guys who thinks they already know everything there is to learn about baseball.”
Levin was the only player on the team with New England roots, he said — many of Rocky Mountain’s players hailed from warmer, year-round baseball climes such as Texas and Arizona — but he fit right in and supported his peers.
“Jordan is kind of a quiet guy, but at the same time he’s always going to root on his teammates,” Price said. “You’d see him open up a little bit at practice, but (he was) always very respectful and just a good teammate. Honestly, it’s hard to say anything bad about him.”
Kenyon coach Matt Burdette recruited Levin primarily because of the strength of his hitting, but had a difficult time finding playing time for him on the Lords last spring. Levin went 0-for-3 with an RBI sacrifice fly in his lone game of the season, starting at DH in Kenyon’s 14-11 loss in game two of a double header at North Coast Athletic Conference rival Wittenburg in late April.
“To be fair, he really should have been 1-for-3 in that game,” Burdette said. “There was a terrible ruling when he blasted one up the middle and the (Wittenburg infielder) had to make a really difficult play and he threw it away. If he had executed it perfectly, Jordy would have been out, but it should have been a hit. I lobbied for it to be changed after the game.”
Burdette feels Levin is best suited for second base, where two-time All Leaguer and rising senior Phillip Nam sits ahead of him on the depth chart. Nam, a native of Singapore, hit .311 with 38 RBIs, four home runs and eight doubles for the Lords last season.
“(Nam) is someone who could very well be an All-American this year,” Burdette said. “That said, Jordy isn’t completely road-blocked because there could be times when Nam plays shortstop and our usual shortstop (Matt von Roemer) goes to the outfield. There could also be times when Jordy plays DH for us because he’s got a really good swing. It’s a violent swing, which we like.”
Levin is home in Thetford until next week, when he’ll head back to Kenyon’s Gambier, Ohio, campus to prepare for his sophomore year as a biology major and the Lords’ intrasquad fall season.
Before he left Colorado, Price, the Oysters coach, insisted players eat at least one of the delicacy that gives the team its namesake. Rocky Mountain Oysters, of course, are made of bull, pig or sheep testicles and often deep fried.
“Believe it or not, it tasted like chicken,” Levin said. “I actually had no idea what they were until they brought them out at our final team dinner.”
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3225.