by James Coulter
This Former Local High School Baseball Star turned Pro Athlete Will Be Returning to His Hometown Next Week.
Dustin Baber started his career playing baseball at the high schools at Frostproof and Winter Haven. He then made his way to Daytona State College and North Carolina A&T. He’s now playing as a second baseman for the Party Animals of the Savannah Banana Baseball Organization.
Now, this local high school baseball star turned pro athlete will be returning to his hometown in Frostproof next week after playing professional baseball for the past two summers. He plans on making a short visit to see his mother, Julie Mulder.
During his two summers playing full-time with the Savannah Bananas, every game he has played has sold out, especially the two games played at the MLB Stadiums of Houston and Boston Fenway Park.
“It has been like a dream come true,” he said. It brings all the fun parts of baseball. But also, it brings no stress from the staff side where you feel like you have to go out there and your performance on the field is taking a backseat to how you interact with fans…As long as I have fans, as long as they are positively interacting with me through the game, that is all that matters.”
His career began at Frostproof, where he played from sixth grade until tenth grade when he transferred to Winter Haven. He then started playing in college baseball for both Daytona State College and North Carolina A&T. During that time, he won the National Rawling Gold Glove for a Junior College as a shortstop.
He then retired for two years and started working as a substitute teacher and hitting instructor for two years. He signed up to play baseball for the Savannah Bananas, and has been playing for them for the past three years.
“I plan on coming home,” he said. “We travel pretty extensively over ten months through the season. There is a possibility of us maybe finding a way home here within the next week, just because it was the first time off. There is a chance I can get back home if I can work out the schedule correctly.”
Moving forward, Baber and his team will be playing in six major league stadiums and 32 stadiums across the country. As someone who started playing baseball in high school, being able to inspire the next generation of athletes is his biggest motivation for playing the game. If he can inspire a young kid to go for his dreams, then he will have achieved his own.
“If you are showing the kids that are growing up that baseball does not have to be as serious as it [appears] to be, it does not have to be hard work,” he said. “The work you put in is the result you will get, but you can also have fun. And I just want all the kids growing up playing this game that I love to know that it does not need to be the end-all-be-all. Some of us strike out and make errors, but we are not knocking ourselves over, so it is not as serious. The fans are what is most important.”
