Every February, baseball roads converge at spring training, where major league teams prepare for the regular season.
Pitcher Adam Macko’s journey has taken him farther off the beaten path than most to get to Dunedin, Florida — the spring training home of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Born in Slovakia, Macko was introduced to baseball at a tryout in Grade 1.
“They got a bunch of tees set up and we were hitting these little foam balls into a net,” Macko said.
“I signed up not really knowing what baseball was. I didn’t understand the rules at all.”
“Neither did my parents. They didn’t even know a sport like that existed, but I got into it… and that’s where it kind of took off.”
Macko continued to learn the game in Europe, before his family eventually settled in Alberta.
“It didn’t really get super serious for me personally until we got to Ireland,” Macko said. “My first role model was Justin Verlander, so I saw him pitch and wanted to emulate his mechanics and that’s where I got to improving myself.”
In Grade 10, the lefthander joined the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball in southern Alberta, spending three years with the Jets.
Head coach Les McTavish recalls a driven, hard-working player on and off the diamond.
“If he didn’t have a good exam or didn’t have a good day on the baseball field, whatever it was, it always motivated him,” McTavish said.
“He’s always been talented, but he wasn’t gifted. Adam wasn’t 6’5 and threw 90 miles an hour when he was 15. He’s 6’0. He’s had to work for everything he’s gotten.
“Early on in his career probably worked himself too much. He was a really, really hard worker, but he sometimes worked himself into soreness.”
It was proof of a desire to reach high goals.
“He was really hungry to thrive for excellence,” McTavish said. “He was in the fall of his 10th-Grade year when he said he wanted to be a hall of famer and we all kind of laughed at him.”
“Not saying he’s going to be a hall of famer, but he’s trending in the right direction.”
A seventh-round pick by the Seattle Mariners in 2019, Macko was dealt to Toronto this winter as part of the trade that sent Jays slugger Teoscar Hernandez to Seattle.
“It was either the Mariners or the Blue Jays I wanted to get drafted by, so it’s kind of cool to get to experience both organizations,” Macko said.
The trade follows a season where Macko struck out 60 batters in 38.1 innings with the Everett AquaSox, the Mariners’ high-A minor league affiliate.
Now attending spring training and preparing for the upcoming season, the southpaw is focused on improving his command.
“Fill up the zone a little bit, get the walk rate down and I think I’m on a good trajectory to do that,” Macko said.
A trajectory he hopes will lead to the big leagues.
“His actual abilities on the field are top-tier now. They’re not filler, minor leaguer-type. His stuff is exceptional,” McTavish said.
“If he can learn to throw a few more strikes, I’d be real surprised if he’s not in the big leagues the next couple years.”
Comments