This story was excerpted from Adam McCalvy’s Brewers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
MILWAUKEE -- Sal Frelick learned to love baseball from dozens of visits to Fenway Park with his father, Jeff. But it wasn’t until he went to Boston College and met head baseball coach Mike Gambino that Sal started to ponder a future playing Major League Baseball.
MLB.com is celebrating fathers and father figures this Father’s Day, and Frelick is an example of someone who is blessed in both departments. Coach Gambino was more than a coach.
“I describe it as he’s my second dad,” Frelick said. “Even now when I watch their games, and he’s not even there anymore, those are my guys. I wouldn’t miss a game. That’s my family. It all started with that relationship.”
Frelick was a freshman at Lexington High School outside Boston when he first met Gambino, and he still remembers the day. Gambino had come to Lexington to recruit one of Frelick’s teammates, Brendan Shaw, the younger brother of yet another BC alum, 2015 first-round Draft pick Chris Shaw.
Chris Shaw told Frelick he should consider attending one of Boston College’s baseball camps, and he did the following summer. He already loved the school, since his family held season tickets for BC hockey and visited campus every Friday night for games. Quickly, he formed a bond with his future college coach.
Frelick knows he was lucky. When he talks to Brewers teammates who played college baseball, not all of them had the same kind of relationships with a coach that will last a lifetime.
“I would say with utmost confidence that everyone else I played with at BC would say the same thing about him,” Frelick said. “He cared. It was so much more about being a good student, a good human being, a good Jesuit. And he completely embodied that. That always came first with his players, and I think he was just really good at it. He built a culture.”
Those lessons are serving Frelick well this season, as he’s struggled, unlike either of his first two full seasons with the Brewers. He went into Thursday’s series finale against the Guardians at -0.2 bWAR, a sharp drop from 2.9 bWAR last season and 2.2 bWAR the year before that.
It’s an opportunity to draw on the confidence instilled in him by Gambino.
“He was definitely the first person who told me he thought I could play baseball at the next level,” Frelick said. “I had no confidence that I would play pro ball. I just loved playing a ton of sports.
“When I got offered to play football [in addition to baseball], I just expected that he knew. But a couple of weeks later, he called me and said he had just found out. He’s like, ‘You have a shot at playing in the big leagues. I believe in you. If you come here and play both, I think that can hurt you a little bit. I think you should come here and just play baseball.’ I trusted him on it. He was the first person who ever said that to me.”
Frelick is glad he trusted. The Brewers drafted him 15th overall in 2021, and when he began his career at Single-A Carolina, he felt way ahead of many of his teammates because of lessons learned in college.
Two years later, he was in the big leagues. He wouldn’t be here without his college coach.
“I’m 100 percent sure of that,” Frelick said.