Playing hardball

There’s nothing Josh Stevens can’t do.

Throughout the Vestavia High School senior’s baseball career, he has played first base, outfield and is now primarily a pitcher. As a pitcher, his fastball has risen in velocity from the 80-82 mph range early in his high school days, to now one coming across in the mid- to upper-80s.

He has an above-average curveball and spent much of the past offseason working on his changeup, one that he began to feel more comfortable with as the 2017 season began.

Stevens entered his senior season with a great opportunity. After pitching just a handful of innings in 2016, his first season with the varsity squad, coaches and players alike were expecting him to be one of the Rebels’ main cogs this spring.

“I knew the whole offseason I needed to come in here and get to work every day,” Stevens said prior to the season. “I needed to get better at what I do and come in and control games like [ace pitcher] Caden [Lemons] has been able to do the last two years. It’s definitely been in the back of my mind that I need to step up a lot more this year.”

The fact that Stevens was born without a full left arm is secondary in his quest to become one of the Rebels’ top pitchers in 2017.

Before the season began, Vestavia head coach Jamie Harris put it best: “Josh is just Josh.”

Modeling Jim Abbott

An obvious name comes to the mind of baseball fans when considering someone similar to Stevens.

Despite being born without a right hand, Jim Abbott pitched in Major League Baseball for 10 years and won 87 games throughout his career. Abbott was the No. 8 overall pick in the 1988 amateur draft and is one of just a few players to go straight to the big leagues after being drafted, without any minor league action.

Stevens models much of his form on the mound to how Abbott did things.

“When I started playing, we watched some stuff he did and tried to modify it to how I wanted to do it,” Stevens said. “I played around with it for awhile. I definitely watched him growing up, just to see how he did things.”

During his windup, Stevens tucks his glove under his left arm and goes through a standard pitching motion. He positions his glove so that at the end of his follow-through, he can slide his right hand into his glove, ready to make a play on a ball if needed.

Being a righty, anything Stevens does similar to Abbott is mirrored, as Abbott was a left-handed pitcher. While Abbott rested his glove at the end of his arm, Stevens tucks his under his arm, compressed against his body. This fact alone makes it all the more impressive that he is able to throw with such velocity, considering that he holds his front arm close to his body while unloading a pitch.

Harris is more than impressed with his ability to command pitches and throw a live fastball.

“Try that,” he said. “It’s really hard. But he’s got enough arm strength to make it work.”

Harris credits assistant coach Kris Thomas for working with Stevens on the intricacies of his pitching motion, and said Thomas takes Stevens’ situation no different than any other pitcher. Every pitcher is different and has different nuances to their mechanics. The fact that Stevens’ look is so much different than most pitchers does not adversely affect how Thomas prepares the senior.

Living Testimony

Stevens knows how to handle adversity. After all, he’s had quite a bit of practice up to this point.

He moved to Vestavia Hills from Huntsville when he was 5 years old, and he said that learning the game of baseball was a tall task. Things did not come as natural to him, but the baseball field was always where he wanted to hone his craft.

Stevens became comfortable with the necessary mechanics of pitching and playing the game between the ages of 10 to 12, he estimated, but since that point, everything has become second nature.

“Josh has learned how to work with his body,” Harris said. “He has different obstacles, but that has never stopped him.”

The guys on the Rebel baseball team comprise a group that Stevens has grown up with for several years now, and he feels at peace with his teammates. They are like a second family to him, one that accepts him without batting an eye. 

His ability to overcome the tests life has thrown at him stands as an example in motion every day for his teammates to look toward.

“He’s somebody they can look to that’s a close friend of theirs,” Harris said. “He’s a living testimony of hard work, perseverance and making no excuses.”

Stevens has a message for anyone thinking of lowering their expectations for him compared to others.

“I’m a competitor just like anyone,” he said. “I’m not trying to receive special treatment, and I want them to hold me to the same standards they have for anyone else.”

There is absolutely no need to feel bad for Stevens. He’s overcome more in 18 years than the average person in a lifetime. And he’s doing just fine.

“He has not let his arm affect his life and what he’s involved in,” Harris said. “He rolls with things and figures out the best way to do them. It’s not ever something we even have to think about.”