Pirates Pitching Prospect Fulfilling Childhood Dream

Bradenton Marauders’ pitching prospect, Michael Kennedy, is a superstar in the making.

This past Saturday at LECOM Park, with Kennedy on the mound, the Marauders defeated the Fort Myers Mighty Mussels 10-3. Kennedy, a southpaw, won by throwing six innings and racking up eight strikeouts along the way. Saturday’s Marauders’ victory brought about the team’s first series victory of the young season.

The 2,269 fans in attendance at LECOM Park knew they witnessed a very special pitcher starting for the home team. Amazingly, the kid, Kennedy, is still a teenager. The 19-year-old from Troy, New York, was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the fourth round of the 2022 MLB Draft in Los Angeles.

Sitting down with the pitcher from New York’s Capital District makes it immediately easy to feel relaxed. It’s clear that he is a product of caring parents back in the Northeast. Joseph and Laurie Kennedy succeeded in raising a polite, respectful, and determined child. There isn’t a hint from having a conversation with Kennedy that he is a professional athlete. He’s just a kid who, when drafted by the Pirates, was 17 years old and is doing exactly what he has wanted to since age 14.

The Pirates’ shirt he’s wearing for our talk is the only obvious hint that Kennedy is a baseball player. Rarely do you come across a teenager who is laser-focused on their path in life, as I found with Kennedy.

However, the more Kennedy allows for his road to Bradenton to be told, the more you will want to root for him to reach superstardom.

Imagine you’re 17-years-old, and on your own for the first time in your young life, and you sign a professional athlete’s contract. For Kennedy, it was goodbye to Upstate New York and hello to Manatee County. Then imagine, as a parent, your child oversees his life.

All the requirements of adult life – paying bills, cooking, washing clothes, paying rent, this is what Kennedy was introduced to last season when first assigned to the Pirates’ Florida Complex League Black team.

“At first, I lived at Pirate City,” said Kennedy this past Thursday. “Then I moved into an apartment with Tommy Harington (Pirates’ top 2022 draft selection). It was nice being on my own and proving that I could survive on my own.”

All expenses were in Harrington’s name, who, at the time of being selected by the Pirates, was 21 years old. At 17, Kennedy was too young to have most everything legally in his name.

Kennedy does have another reason to have cooled any homesickness he may have been experiencing. His girlfriend from New York, whom he met while she was attending the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, is living near Bradenton. After college and relocating to Ellenton in Manatee County, the couple continued to enjoy each other’s company and be supportive of their individual career paths.

Although Kennedy is quick to say his baseball everything is the Pittsburgh Pirates, growing up in the shadows of the “Empire State’s” capital, he was all in on following the New York Yankees.

Yankees pitching legend (and southpaw) Andy Petitte and current New York hurler Nestor Cortes are two players Kennedy declares to be a fan of. It’s strictly from a pitching perspective. It’s their pick-off moves that intrigue him professionally.

Prior to being drafted by Pittsburgh, Kennedy tells of already committed to playing college ball at LSU.

“I had a dream when I was 14 that this (baseball) was the life for me,” explains Kennedy, who, after Saturday's win, has brought his personal pitching statistics to a 1-1 record this season, with a 3.13 ERA, racking up 30 strikeouts in 23 innings, all in five game appearances.

He tells of taking instructions from many and containing most for future use. It hasn’t been uncommon for Kennedy to be “self-taught” either, when looking for an edge, by finding helping hints on the internet, too.

His commitment to excellence on baseball diamonds is obvious. Being in Pittsburgh, throwing off the mound at PNC Park during an MLB game, is more than a vision for Kennedy. He believes that he could make this dream a reality.

Whether as a reliever or starter (during his two seasons in Bradenton, Kennedy has been tried in both roles), Kennedy will always give his Marauders’ teammates, pitching coach Matt Ford, and manager Jim Horner his very best effort.

Kennedy is a likable, well-mannered young man. He understands and appreciates his family’s blue-collar working background. Signing bonus aside, just getting an opportunity to play professional baseball makes Kennedy smile.

As our conversation concluded, I saw Kennedy walking back to the Marauders’ clubhouse, and I thought of actor Frank Whaley in the film Field of Dreams. The scene in which Kevin Costner’s character Ray Kinsella and James Earl Jones as writer Terence Mann, are riding in a van, making the long drive from Minnesota to Iowa, immediately comes to mind.

Along the side of the road, Kinsella stops, and picks up a boyish Whaley hitchhiking to nowhere. He’s just looking for a baseball game, anywhere, so long as he gets to play. As the introductions go, Whaley proudly gives his name – Archie Graham. This is how the Moonlight Graham character played by Burt Lancaster originates in the film.

Michael Patrick Kennedy is baseball’s real-life Archie Graham. He just wants to play baseball with the same innocence and energy that all kids first experience when being introduced to the game. How could you not cheer for him?