
Current Major Leaguer and Trenton native Wyatt Langford stopped playing recreational ball when he was 12 years old.
A year later, at the age of 13, he began playing travel ball until he was 18.
The rest, as they say, is history, as he went on to star at the University of Florida before being selected last July as the fourth overall pick by the Texas Rangers in the MLB Draft.
Langford, 23, is home for the holidays.
He and his wife Hallie have a house in Trenton, where Langford was a six-year varsity starter for the Tigers’ high school baseball team.
This past Saturday, he hosted the Wyatt Langford Baseball Camp, sponsored by the Florida Hardballers Baseball Foundation.
Florida Hardballers is a baseball academy for ages 9-18. A total of 235 kids have signed college scholarships, 25 have been drafted, and four have made it to the big leagues.
In fact, it was the Hardballers who talked to University of Florida baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan to help Langford become a Gator.
“Wyatt played for us since 7th-grade, with the Florida Hardballers, and we’ve had a good relationship over the years, and John Colacci and I have been running the Hardballers since 2006, and Wyatt wanted to come back and give back to the kids of the community,” said Oak Hall School coach Kevin Maris. “They came down and supported him down in Tampa when Texas came in to play Tampa, and he wanted to come back and give back… He knows how much that means to the young kids.”
The camp, which ranged in ages from 9 to 14, was held at Champions Park in Newberry.
“It’s really cool to come out here and be able to do something for the kids,” Langford said. “Obviously the Hardballers played a really big role in getting me where I am today, getting me to Florida, and then eventually to the big leagues now, so it’s really cool to be able to give back.”
Young players had the unique opportunity to learn, play, and meet Langford, along with special guest Matthew Jenkins, a sophomore right-handed pitcher for the Gators and another proud Florida Hardballers alumnus who worked with the pitchers.
Camp participants got a chance to run the 40, learn some base running drills, and practice pitching and infield, while Langford took care of all of the hitting.
“Yeah, we figured I would help with the hitting, figured that would be the best,” Langford said with a laugh. “It’s cool to be out here giving back and working with the kids. I wanted to do kind of a younger age group. I just feel that’s a little more influential.”
Langford has helped the Florida Hardballers conduct camps in the past, when he was at UF, but this time Langford wanted to do more.
“We’ve just always talked about it,” Colacci said. “He’s always said that once he has time he wants to help and give back. He appreciates everything that we kind of did for him and the platform we gave him.”
Colacci was not surprised by his fast acceleration at the professional level.
“For some of us that have been around him forever, it wasn’t surprising,” he said. “He’s just hard work and dedication, the way he’s just always excelled at every level, 13U, 14U, all the way up and when got to Florida everybody saw what he did. I think it was a little surprising just to see him be probably, I think he was one of the first or second fastest guys to get to the big leagues, but it’s been amazing.”
Langford had a lot of great moments during his rookie season of professional baseball.
“Some of the home runs I hit were definitely really cool, I’ll be able to look back on that for sure,” Langford said. “Just being around my teammates, getting to experience it and take it all in.”
He also hit his first-ever inside-the-park home run, which ended up being his first MLB home run.
“Definitely unique,” he said. “It was really cool.”
His work ethic is often described as relentless.
“I try my best,” he said. “It’s one of the things that you can control to just go out there and work as hard as you can. You can’t always control the results, so go out there and do whatever you can.”
Langford’s rookie MLB season was worthy of recognition. He became just the second player, and the only rookie, in MLB history to produce a walk-off grand slam (Sept. 3 vs. the Yankees), hit for the cycle (June 30 at Baltimore) and hit an inside-the-park home run (April 28 vs. the Reds) in the same season, joining Brooklyn’s Jackie Robinson in 1948.
In his first year with the Rangers, Langford belted 16 home runs and drove in 74 runs across 134 games. He also used his speed (19 stolen bases) and defense (eight assists) to compile 3.9 WAR (wins above replacement), which was good for fourth among all rookie position players in Major League Baseball, according to Baseball Reference.
Langford twice took home American League Rookie of the Month honors, and in September, he also won the overall AL Player of the Month award.
On Saturday, Langford reminisced about when he first got interested in focusing on baseball as a youngster.
“Right around 10 probably is when I really started getting into it,” Langford said. “I really started working hard and decided this is what I wanted to do. My dad made me hit all the time (at 10), which is why I kind of chose this (age) group.”