Stephen ridings the substitute teacher who throws 100 miles per hour was supervising classes in Florida and is now in the majors with nothing but the New York Yankees from New York.
Stephen ridings burst onto the MLB scene in the Yankee Stadium in August, pitching triple-digit fastballs and striking out in his major league debut. Apparently it came out of nowhere.
But it didn’t come out of nowhere. RidingsThe 26-year-old was removed a few months from the Palm Beach Maritime Academy in the small coastal town of Lantana, Florida.
Ridings A minor league player for the Royals in 2019, he took on the role of part-time teacher, or, as he put it, “supervisor,” after COVID prevented the 2020 season from happening.
Hailing from Haverford, the small D-III school that has a strong fraternity of baseball executives (Josh Byrnes of the Dodgers, Thad Levine of the Twins), Ridings replaced Maritime from October 2020 to early March 2021.
He downplayed his role. – saying she mostly just took attendance, distributed lesson plans, and kept kids in line (probably not too much when you’re 6ft 8in, 220lbs).
While Ridings Making his way through the school grounds, students and faculty began to realize that this new person could be, uh, a professional athlete (again, he’s 6ft 8in).
“The younger kids had no idea… Some of the older ones I talked to about it, they thought it was cool… But they asked me what I do besides this and I was like, ‘I’ I’m a professional baseball player. ‘ They tried to google me. There were a couple of children who understood it well ”.
While Ridings, a minor league player for the Royals, was teaching and coaching for a possible 2021 season, Kansas City released him in November 2020.
Fortunately, the gym where Ridings was training in Florida is led by Eric Cressey, who is also the Director of Player Health and Performance for the Yankees.
Cressey posted a video of Ridings to the main office of the Yankees, prompting a Yankees scout to attend training at the facility. That led to a contract in January.
After the Yankees They hired him, he was very quiet, just ‘yeah yeah’ he said, ‘the Yankees just signed me he laughed Ridings.
Ridings dropped out of school in early 2021 to join the Yankees, and the right-hander pulled off some electrifying numbers at Double- and Triple-A. He was called up to make his major league debut at Yankee Stadium in early August and did not disappoint: He struck out seven of the 20 batters he faced, allowing just four hits and one run. Fans on Twitter (even now there is a Twitter account named after him), loved every second of his performances. Even his teammates couldn’t get enough of his story.
With information and image from MLB.com (Matt Monagan).