Jake Noll was a college walk-on. Now he’s having a great spring with the Nationals.
Jake Noll has two home runs for the Nationals during his first big league spring training. By Jesse Dougherty Jesse Dougherty Reporter covering the Washington Nationals. Email Bio Follow March 17 at 12:07 PM WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Here is how my first conversation with Jake Noll began, way back on Feb. 17, before he started tearing through the Grapefruit League:“You know what I’m going to say?” I asked Noll, a 24-year-old infielder in the Washington Nationals’ minor league system.
“You mind if I finish this game first?” he responded, without looking up, as he tapped away at his iPhone. “I’m playing Bloon Towers Defense. I’ll be done in five minutes tops.”“I don’t know, man, I feel like I’ve sort of always been overlooked,” Noll said, the lockers around him empty because most young players have been sent down to minor league camp. “I always thought I could do this, but I can’t really explain how I ended up here.
One of the scholarship catchers quit Noll’s first year so he was named a bullpen catcher. He had never caught and now received 90-mph fastballs day after day after day. He thought he was finished after that season. Being a walk-on is hard, he says now. But there was an opening at second base, he started in that spot on the B-team, and soon he was playing varsity and spending hours in the weight room. His muscles caught up to his mechanics and he hit 12 home runs with a .
He has had a few rookie moments down here, starting in Fort Myers on Feb. 28. Martinez figured Noll would have a big crowd there, since it was near his college and high school, so he made sure to get Noll in the game. When his name was announced over the loudspeaker, Martinez heard only scattered cheers in an otherwise quiet ballpark. He told Noll that he must know more people than that. Noll admitted that it was his mother, Cindy, and a handful of her friends.
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