Paul Skenes' rise has been stunning but those who watched him play at Air Force witnessed him pull off an impressive two-way feat that earned him the nickname Shohei Paultani.
Paul Skenes' rise as one of the MLB's top pitchers has been stunning -- but those who watched him play at Air Force witnessed him pull off an impressive two-way feat that earned him the nickname Shohei Paultani. Ryan Hockensmith is a Penn State graduate who joined ESPN in 2001. He is a survivor of bacterial meningitis, which caused him to have multiple amputation surgeries on his feet. He is a proud advocate for those with disabilities and addiction issues.
The tale of this period of his life is almost too tall to believe. During those two years -- 2021 and 2022 -- Skenes began an unheard-of rise from an unknown Division I catcher to a transcendent baseball pitching phenom in about 1,000 days. There has been almost nothing in recent baseball history like his ascension, and it's hard to imagine a sequel coming along any time soon.
At breakfast, he has 15 minutes to eat whatever is put in front of him, then hustles down to the baseball diamond for an hour of some light throwing and hitting off a machine. There are no coaches around so calling these sessions practices would be an insult to practices. At some point early in the fall, Skenes says,"You know, I pitch a little, too." Joe is surprised. A Luka Doncic-sized catcher and pitcher? That's not a thing, he thinks. And besides, Skenes has emerged as the team's best hitter and starting catcher. Coaches are talking about batting him leadoff just to get him more at-bats.
As the season approaches in winter 2021, coaches come up with a patently absurd but reasonable middle ground with Skenes -- he would be the team's everyday catcher ... and its closer. Skenes was getting scary good at both positions. The coaches and kids at Bleecker's training facility started giving him nicknames, such as Big Hoss, Big Country and Shohei Paultani. It's worth noting that Skenes is exhibit A for the generation of young baseball players who grew up in the age of Ohtani and reset their dreams in a way that made some seemingly impossible ideas -- like being a catcher and closer -- seem possible.
But even the Air Force didn't yet see him as a pitching recruit in the same way that Skenes saw himself. Falcons coaches loved how his big body and hands seemed to comfort pitchers in such a way that they felt like they were throwing to the side of a barn instead of a person. He got so good at framing pitches that between innings once during his freshman year, an ump told Air Force assistant coach Jimmy Roesinger,"Hey, if you don't see me again, it's been fun.
His very first college pitching outing happens to come against, of all schools, LSU, his future transfer destination. The moment became an indelible image for Skenes and his Air Force family: him heading to the mound with a 6-4 lead as teammates wait to see if their catcher actually could do double duty. There is a genuine sense of nerves in the Air Force dugout -- LSU is No.
But Crews turns on a fastball and lifts it beyond the outfield wall. Suddenly LSU is within 6-5, with the heart of the order coming up. Skenes gets the next hitter to ground out, then digs in for a showdown with Morgan, a future third-round pick in the 2023 draft. Morgan battles from 1-2 to 3-2, and Skenes stands on the mound for a make-or-break pitch.
When Skenes eventually retires, he wants to return to the Air Force as a coach:"I feel like I owe it to the Air Force Academy because of what it did for me and what the coaching staff did for me." the Air Force impacted Skenes as a baseball player, he says the academy changed him as a human being even more. He studied biochemistry and started every baseball game as a freshman, with a hilarious stat line unlikely to ever be reproduced in major college baseball: 3.
Let's just say he understood the assignment. One piece of Skenes lore is an anecdote about how he was at the baseball field one day and observed two people not following academy protocol. The clock had struck 4:45 p.m. and, like it did every single day of life at Air Force,"The Star-Spangled Banner" began to play over the academy's giant speaker system.
Skenes says the guy's lucky he even got a 30."It was a bad room," he says, and he immediately recounts that in addition to being a mess, the room hadn't been locked properly and the cadet had a Chicago Bulls flag that hadn't been authorized."If I put my name on that room, that's my name. I can't do that. I probably graded it too fairly. I could have been more harsh. You've got to be on top of your stuff.
Teammates goofed on Skenes a bit when he received two incentive plane rides, a reward for handling his business. Skenes rode in an F-15 once and an F-16 another time, and his buddies loved seeing him mashed into the cockpit with his legs curled up and his upper body vised on both sides. The only thing missing was a sink for his feet.
Then he found out the news he'd been waiting for: He'd start the opener and be the team's"Friday guy," and coaches would try to get him in the lineup as much as possible on the other days. They had a rough outline of him pitching on Fridays, DHing on Saturdays and catching on most Sundays. The 2021-22 season opened against a tough Iowa team that eventually finished as the Big Ten runner-up that year.
But the rocket ship had a scary moment on April 8, 2022, against Cal Baptist. Skenes is dealing on the mound, cruising into the sixth inning with nine strikeouts and one run allowed. With one out in the sixth, he's still throwing 95-plus mph when he uncorks a fastball that a Cal Baptist hitter connects hard with. The ball is right up the middle, going north of 100 mph, and coaches still remember the thump of the ball bouncing off Skenes' face.
The coaching staff decided to let Skenes catch on Sunday, even though his eyes had gotten worse overnight. But he could see and felt fine, sounded fine, caught fine. On the field afterward, the entire team was somber but proud of the late-season push. A few coaches and players seemed downright distraught, though, and that included Skenes. He had told the staff that the team's final game would be his final game with the team -- he was going to transfer.
So when they got knocked out by Texas, that core group of coaches felt especially somber. Skenes had become college baseball's Shohei Paultani, winning the John Olerud Award as the best two-position player in the country. As soon as the team got back to Colorado, Skenes announced to everybody else that he wouldn't be back."This has been an honor," he said."I wish I could stay. But I have to go."
“He’s doing great things at the big league level with the mustache -- so it’s working,” says former Air Force pitching coach Ryan Forrest, before he takes a long pause. “But it’s still terrible. He needs to shave it.” was all Paul Bunyan, no Paultani. As a pure pitcher at LSU, Skenes was breathtaking. He became the clear No.
That fame is only going to increase, though. Skenes is one of those star rookies who crosses over into phenom territory like he is in the EZ Pass lane for A-list sports status. He has all the ingredients: He's 6-foot-7, throws 100 mph, is dating one of the most famous college athletes ever and even has an awesome mustache.
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