SUNAPEE — Jack Weinberger’s college baseball career was not going the way he’d hoped.
Weinberger had helped Sunapee Middle High School win three NHIAA Division IV state championships before graduating in 2014, but he had struggled as a pitcher through his first two seasons at NCAA Division III Springfield (Mass.) College, with an earned-run average of 11.49.
More than five years later, Weinberger is playing professionally, having pitched in the independent Frontier League and Atlantic League in 2021 with hopes of playing affiliated ball in the near future.
A tall right-hander, Weinberger had been throwing from a high release point, straight over the top, to maximize his 6-foot-4-inch frame. But before his junior year, new assistant coach Branon Kincaid suggested he try something very different — throwing sidearm.
“I was actually a sidearm pitcher myself,” Kincaid said. “I figured with his athletic ability and his lankiness, (we could) use that long arm as a whip and get a little funky. We worked hard at it. He’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever coached.”
Weinberger found immediate results after making the change. His ERA dropped to 4.11 and then 2.78, respectively, in his junior and senior seasons, and his strikeout rate skyrocketed from 4.5 per nine innings as a sophomore to 13.5 per nine as a junior.
Despite his newfound success, Weinberger assumed his baseball career was over when he graduated. He moved to Miami and began teaching middle school physical education. But the itch to prove himself on the field never went away. His first professional opportunity — albeit an unpaid one — came with the Puerto Rico Islanders of the Empire Baseball League, which gives post-college players a chance to keep playing and prepare for higher-level professional leagues.
Weinberger excelled in Puerto Rico during the 2019 summer season, allowing just one earned run in 14⅔ innings and winning the league’s reliever of the year award. That led to a spot in the Yinzer League in western Pennsylvani a, where he was teammates with former major league all-star Brandon Phillips. Phillips was there to support his brother PJ, who was managing the team.
“That was really my first experience playing with anyone who was super professional,” Weinberger said. “It’s the same game, but there’s so much to it that you don’t really learn until you’re playing against people who are even better.”
Although Weinberger struggled in the Yinzer League in 2020, he still found his way to the Frontier League, one of the top independent professional leagues in the country. He landed this past summer with the New Jersey Jackals, where he quickly bonded with bench coach Jared Lemieux, a fellow Springfield College graduate.
Lemieux said Weinberger worked mainly on developing his secondary pitches in the Frontier League, as well as making sure he could handle the workload of a longer season. Weinberger pitched 58 innings with the Jackals this summer, more than double his output from any season since high school.
“He developed his off-speed stuff later in his career,” Lemieux said. “We worked on that, and dealing with the longevity of the season. He’s a big, strong kid, but that’s the first time he’d played that much baseball in that short an amount of time. So we worked on keeping his body in the right shape and staying mentally tough.”
Weinberger had mixed results in New Jersey, but his top highlight was an encounter with another former Cincinnati Reds all-star. Todd Frazier was in the Frontier League with the Sussex County Miners to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, but Weinberger got the better of him that day.
“My manager came down and he said, ‘Weinberger, I need you to be ready for Todd Frazier,’ ” Weinberger said. “That’s the coolest thing anyone has ever told me. I struck him out on three pitches. I threw a fastball away, I threw a slider that started out at his hip and fell into the zone and then I just reached back and threw a fastball as hard as I could up in the zone. He foul-tipped it into the glove for strike three.”
Weinberger’s performance was strong enough that the Charleston Dirty Birds of the Atlantic League gave him a chance to join them for their late-season playoff push. The Atlantic League is considered the highest-caliber non-affiliated league in the minors, and MLB has used it to test out potential changes to rules and regulations. Everything clicked for Weinberger in his short stint in Charleston — he gave up one earned run in 8⅓ innings, striking out 12.
Following the season, Weinberger decided to put his teaching career on hold and commit to keeping his baseball dreams alive.
“I feel like I’m a late bloomer in the sense of baseball knowledge,” Weinberger said. “Right when I graduated college, I finally started to understand it. So when it came to deciding between teaching and playing baseball, there’s so much more that I can still learn. I’m not at my best yet. I know I can still get a lot better.”
Late bloomer or not, Weinberger’s potential was there during his high school days in Sunapee. He spent four years on the varsity team for the Lakers, playing second base when he wasn’t pitching. Sunapee coach Tom Frederick, who also went to Springfield College, said Weinberger absorbed baseball knowledge quickly and his pitching improved every year.
They stay in touch, and Frederick is glad to see his former player trying to advance his baseball career.
“If you have the ability and the wherewithal to chase your dreams, then chase them until you can’t anymore,” Frederick said. “It’s better to know that you couldn’t make it than to wonder if you could.”
Weinberger, who will turn 26 on Saturday, is now living in Los Angeles, where he can train outdoors year-round and coach as well. He is hoping to return to the Atlantic League next spring and eventually play in a major league organization.
The mantra “pick positivity” has guided Weinberger throughout his career. To him, that means having a positive attitude is something he can control, and he’s found he can be happier and more successful when he finds the positives in every situation.
And even if his time in baseball doesn’t last much longer, Weinberger is hopeful his journey can inspire small-town kids in New England to chase their dreams like he has.
“If you have a dream, even coming from a small town or a small state, there’s so much out there that you can chase,” Weinberger said. “It’s just about never giving up and staying positive.
“If you are willing to chase it and never give up and continue to pick positivity, I really believe anything is possible.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.