Knocking it out of the park: The story of Denison Club Baseball

Arianna Griffiths, Editor-in-Chief–

Years ago in his backyard in Concord, Massachusetts, a young Matt Lehmann ‘25 practiced his swings. Little did he know, his biggest hit would come years later, when he co-founded the Denison Club Baseball team.

From attending games at Fenway Park since he was 3 years old to playing on school teams and summer travel teams with his brother when they were growing up, Lehmann simply loves the sport.

“I’ve been playing baseball forever. My first word was ‘ball.’ So baseball has been a huge part of my existence, I guess,” Lehmann said.

Naturally, when Lehmann came to Denison, he wanted to continue his passion.

“Founding it sort of started when I tried to walk onto the varsity team. I knew a bunch of guys – about nine or 10 – tried to walk on my freshman year. None of us made it, and so we all obviously wanted to continue playing baseball and have that opportunity to play in college. You need nine guys to field a team, and so, somehow…I got connected with Jack Reaney [‘22] who was a senior while I was a freshman, and he had a similar idea of starting a club baseball team, so we joined forces.”

Reaney and Lehmann co-founded Denison Club Baseball. They worked together to cover all the bases of starting a successful club.

“He helped with the administrative stuff – he had already started a few clubs – and I helped with the recruiting aspect, and getting some of those guys who wanted to walk on and continue to play baseball to come out for the club. I think that spring we had 15 to 17 members on the spring team,” Lehmann said.

By his sophomore year, with his co-founder having graduated, Lehmann stepped up to plate as the sole president of the team.

“I feel like the first couple years…my goal was to really build the club and to make sure it, sort of, was consistently stable: stable with budget, stable with players, stable with opponents.”

That’s when Kade Sweckard ‘26 came into the picture.

“I was here during the admitted student visit, and Matt, who was a freshman at the time, was involved in club baseball, he actually gave me a tour of the athletic facility,” Sweckard said., “I knew about the club baseball team before I even got to campus, actually. I knew going into my college experience that it was something I wanted to be a part of, honestly, since day one.”

Sweckard now serves as the vice president of the club, working alongside Lehmann – as well as being his roommate.

Looking back on that initial interest in club baseball, Sweckard said, “Now it’s become a pretty big part of my time here at Denison and I’ve really enjoyed being part of the club so far.”

Patrick Fitzgerald ‘26 is the treasurer of the club. He credited the club baseball team with not only allowing him to play his favorite sport, but also with introducing him to some of his best friends.

Fitzgerald started playing on the team as a first-year, and really enjoyed it, however, he the team but was busy with other commitments. But he still felt a need to keep playing baseball. After meeting the team his first year, he decided his sophomore year that he wanted to get to know them better.

“I went to a couple practices and I am like ‘wait, I think I found my group of guy friends,’ like, it was perfect,” Fitzgerald said.

Lehmann, among several other of the teammates, has become a close friend of Fitzgerald’s over the years.

“I grew a big friendship with him, and I grew a lot of respect for him- enough to be his roommate in the first semester of this year,” said Fitzgerald, who is studying abroad in Switzerland this semester.

And who would be better to take Fitzgerald’s roommate spot with Lehmann than Sweckard who returned from studying abroad in Australia?

“My two favorite roommates, Kade Sweckard and Patrick Fitzgerald, I met through club baseball, so it’s been fun to meet people that way,” Lehmann said.

The team is about more than just the sport they love; it’s also about the teammates spending time together.

“The thing that I enjoy most about the team is just the people that we have there. They’re all really passionate about baseball and they all just really enjoy going out there and having fun, and being active, and getting outside, and stuff like that, and that’s something we strive for as a club, is just going out and having fun,” Sweckard said. “I really like how it’s not just the baseball we enjoy; it’s the travel, and being with one another and doing meals, and stuff like that, and hanging out outside of games, and stuff like that, so I really enjoy that.”

There is much more to running a club team than just playing the games. From budget requests to scheduling games at their home field, Don Edwards Park in Newark, there are many other responsibilities that go into running the team.

But there are also some fun parts of the administrative work. One of Lehmann and Sweckard’s many accomplishments for the team includes designing the uniforms, alongside Fitzgerald. They have two sets of jerseys, one cream and one red.

“I think we’re really lucky with Denison, they do a great job of making sure that the clubs get enough money allocated for things like uniforms,” Sweckard said. “It’s really cool to have the freedom to design our own jerseys.”

The team gets to wear the Denison name on its jerseys while still getting to customize them.

“There is a little logo on the back that has Swasey [Chapel] on it that says ‘The Hill,’ so it’s like our own little twist on just having fun with the jerseys, really,” Sweckard said.

Lehmann, Sweckard, and Fitzgerald work with Lynsey Whisner, the director of club sports, to manage the team.

“I see the responsibility they take to make sure the team is thriving,” Whisner said. “I truly believe that the team is a big part of the overall Denison experience with the students on this team and I hope it is something they look back on in ten years and remember how much fun they had being part of it. That is really what the club sport experience is about.”

With its status as a club sport, balancing the right amount of competition with having fun has been a central focus for the team’s leaders in order to retain players while still allowing people to have a good time and enjoy without too much pressure.

“I think the easiest way to get people to join is to make it as fun as possible, but the easiest way to keep people coming back is to make it as competitive as possible,” Lehmann said. “Playing those wiffle ball games once or twice a semester when, really, we should be practicing our ground balls or our footwork if we really want to be super competitive, but also making sure we do those rundown drills and those PFP [pitcher fielding practice] practices so that when we are in games, we don’t look like a bunch of buffoons out there on the field,” Lehmann said.

A unique feature of the team is that they don’t have an outside coach, which Sweckard sees not as a detriment, but, rather, as an opportunity to grow closer with the team and work on management skills.

“One of the coolest things from our perspective is that since we don’t have a coach, we can, kind of, lead stuff by ourselves,” Sweckard said. “I’ve really just enjoyed getting to lead practices, and stuff like that, making them fun, hopefully getting the team a little bit better whenever we go out there and practice. And I just enjoy showing up everyday.”

Fitzgerald said how Lehmann has been training him and Sweckard to become the team’s next leaders.

“Once we became roommates, right before we got on campus, he texted me and was like, ‘Patrick, obviously I’m a senior, so I won’t be here next year, so I want to train you and Kade, and teach you the ins and outs about club baseball so you guys can run it for your last year, then you can pass it off to the upperclassmen’. He did a really good job with that, and Kade and I just submitted the budget, so we got our first thing done.” Fitzgerald said.

Although Sweckard and Fitzgerald are gearing up for their new leadership positions on the team next semester, it is not without difficulty to see their dear friend, Lehmann, graduate from the team as well as from Denison.

“I think he’s done an amazing job and I’m sad to see him go because he is, like, the heart and soul of the team,” Fitzgerald said.

Lehmann will take a lot away from being part of club baseball and apply it to his life, both on and off the field.

“One thing I will take away from this experience and leading for the past three years is how to delegate power and responsibilities to those who are interested in participating in a leadership role, while not forcing them into a confined idea,” Lehmann said. “Understanding that everyone has a point-of-view and incorporating everyone’s ideas will help me beyond a game of baseball: in jobs, personal life, and relationships…this will be a strong lesson that I take away from this, as well as how to create a budget and all that kind of administrative stuff.”

Looking to the future, the team has a lot of promise with the legacy Lehmann has left. Seth Konaga ‘28 is a newer player on the team. Having played baseball since first grade, Konaga was looking for a place to share his love for the sport and enjoy it with others when he came to college.

“I love how welcoming the teammates were and how they truly love baseball,” Konaga said. “Club baseball really helped me find friends that I can rely on, and manage school stress as well. Just having a place I can play baseball is so much help for me.”

Konaga also encourages anyone who is interested to come to a practice and try it out.

“We are looking for more players right now so if you have interest in playing baseball, come to our practices!” Konaga said.

So, Lehmann did continue his passion in college, but in addition to that, he also grew a new club and met his best friends through it.

“It’s been fun to start… and deal with those challenges of starting at such a small school and growing it the past four years while also being able to play and make a lot of friends along the way,” Lehmann said. “Hopefully I’ll continue to play for as long as possible.”

And so Lehmann runs home with more than just points.

Denison Club Baseball will have its senior night game at 11 a.m. on April 27. You can follow along with their schedule and updates on their Instagram @du_clubbaseball.