Photo by Kavin Mistry
By Matt Weiner (@MattWeiner20) – Reporter
Not stepping on the foul-line chalk is a simple and well known unwritten rule of baseball.
Then there are the more nuanced ones like, “don’t become parallel with the infield dirt while looking like you’re in the middle of an indoor skydiving simulator.”
San Jose State second baseman Jackson Forbes learned the latter the hard way with a mouth full of dirt after trampolining off of Hunter Dorraugh.
Fortunately for Forbes, he was the second object that hopelessly trampolined off of Dorraugh into the atmosphere — the first being a baseball.
With one runner on and the Spartans down 3-2 in the fifth inning against Portland on Feb. 27, Dorraugh sent a pitch from Pilots’ Caleb Franzen sailing over the “Bay 101 Casino” sign in left field at Excite Ballpark.
“I told him to get up and so we got up and I’d say I am a little bigger than Jackson so I kind’ve took him out,” Dorraugh said. “He took it like a champ.”
Dorraugh and Forbes have celebrated together since they were 10, but now the circumstances were raised by a smidge.
At the time, it was the sixth-straight game with a home run for the Vacaville native, the most in school history and at the time of writing Dorraugh is tied for No.16 in the nation and No. 1 in the Mountain West with eight.
“It’s always great coming back and seeing that all the guys are fired up and it’s just an adrenaline rush,” Dorraugh said.
Dorraugh’s proclivity for knocking the seams off baseballs earned him a nod for Mountain West Player of the Week from Feb. 22 to Feb. 27 and March 15 to March 20.
The method behind the madness is the normal baseball diatribe about taking it one at-bat at a time and trying to hit a line drive to center field.
Though not particularly interesting, it’s the vehicle driving an incredible story about a kid in college who didn’t know where he would be a few months ago.
“Three months ago, I was in the transfer portal with no idea about where I was going.”
His absurd slash line of .357/.526/1.740 during his first Mountain West Player of the Week win would’ve been a pipe dream when Dorraugh didn’t know if he’d even be playing at the Division I level.
“I was looking at a Division III and Division II,” Dorraugh said. “Luckily, ‘T Walk’ [Thomas Walker] came out to Dodge City, Kansas and gave me an opportunity.”
Not sure if he looked at his dog right after and said “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”. Either way, the exasperation mixed with excitement could still be the same.
Sacramento State was Dorraugh’s home for the previous two years playing a total of 33 games and in 2021 reaching base at a .389 clip.
His numbers make it seem like it was a great fit for him, but belief from himself was missing internally.
“I wasn’t the player I am today because of the lack of belief I had in myself,” Dorraugh said.
Belief is a seed that Dorraugh planted, watered and tilled while also getting some sunlight to naturally grow it from the coaching staff.
But to say that the belief process was just started is egregious.
It’s a continuous process and one that becomes infectious.
“Hunter has always been a standout baseball player and teammate,” said former Vacaville High School teammate George Christenson. “The thing that separates Hunter in my eyes was his work ethic and never being satisfied with where he was at. He really lives by the motto of no day’s off. He’s always putting the extra work in on the field and the weight room to be better.”
“No day’s off” can feel like lip service, yet for the upper echelon of athletes it’s a key pillar to success. There’s no way around taking a day off because it just means someone else is either gaining ground or passing you by. Choosing to skip a day of hitting off a tee or working out is the equivalent of falling off course in a game of Mario Kart where you’re just stuck waiting for someone to hook you back on to the course.
“On breaks when we go home, he’s still hitting [and] working [on] Christmas Eve [and] New Years,” said Christenson. “In general, he’s just working to be better every single day.”
The work is where the belief starts. Without it, there is little evidence for Dorraugh and even his coaches to put it back into him. Just like a moth heading toward light, belief see’s an ample amount of swings off a tee when Santa is preparing to make his rounds and knows that there is enough to keep going.
“At the end of the day, I didn’t have a coach or coaching staff that believed in me as this coaching staff does,” Dorraugh said.
Adding that his “job out there is to play as hard as possible for them and for them not to regret the decision they’ve made.”
It’s a dually beneficial and remedial business deal: coaches institute unwavering support and confidence in return for unwavering effort.
So far, both sides are raking in profits and on pace to hit their expected year end quota. At the time of writing, the Spartans sit with a 12-9 record and have already doubled their win total from their 2021 campaign.