As soon as Ty Hanchey and his brothers could run, they were constantly playing wiffleball in the back yard of their family home in Norfolk, Va.
The games included a plastic bat, first base was a tree, second was the corner of the deck, a small mark on the fence served as third and a small batting cage acted like the Green Monster to keep the balls in the Hanchey home.
That makeshift diamond was a few minutes' walk from Ocean Beach, and the backyard games molded a bond with his brothers, who also became future teammates.
“We were always a very athletic family,” Hanchey said. “When we got a ball and a bat in our hand, it was just game over.”
The Hanchey household revolved around baseball. Uncles, older brothers, cousins, all the guys in the family played or coached the game. Ty came up in that environment alongside his twin brother Trent and older brother by five years Trey, and from the time they were old enough to grip a bat, competition was everything.
The three brothers eventually landed at nearby Norfolk State University at the same time. Trey was a pitcher in his fifth year, Trent a utility infielder and Ty behind the plate. In one early-season series, all three were on the field at the same time.
Trey was on the mound, Ty was catching him, Trent was at shortstop, and a good number of family members were at the game played at James Madison University.
“That was a really cool highlight of our college careers,” Ty said. “We only had one year to play with our older brother, and we got really lucky because he was a redshirt guy, so he just got that fifth year by chance. We got a shot to play with him, which was awesome.”
It's a moment he keeps close, filing it somewhere near the top of his baseball memories, just behind getting signed as a professional.
Ty and Trent were inseparable teammates, starting from five-year-old T-ball teams, through high school and at Norfolk State. The separation came eventually.
Opportunities called them in different directions Ty headed south to Florida A&M University, Trent transferred to Division III Virginia Wesleyan University. It was the first time the twins had ever been on separate teams. The adjustment was real, even if both of them understood it was necessary.
"That was the first time we'd actually been separated since ever," Ty said. "But it was the best adjustment for both of our careers."
Wrapping up his college seasons in Florida wasn’t too much of an adjustment on the distance from his family. Ty noticed it more when he got signed by the San Francisco Giants and started his professional career on the other side of the country. Trent is back in the Norfolk area, working in the family’s painting and plastering business their grandfather started, their father carried and Trey now runs.
The promotion has brough the twins back closer than ever in Hanchey’s professional career.
"The bond with me and (Trent), like we're two peas in a pod, and it always has been," Ty said. "We’re basically the same person. Even to this day and being separated, we talk on the phone every day. The bond will never be broken and the older we get, the closer we get.”
When the Giants promoted Hanchey to Double-A Richmond, the first person he called was his dad.
It was 10:30 at night, Hanchey wasn’t packed for his trip of a 4 a.m. flight. His dad was texting family members while still on the phone with him.
"I got a lot of congratulatory texts that night" Hanchey said. "Everybody was stoked I was coming up and I barely slept that night."
He had around 12 family members that first night at CarMax Park. Then on the Sunday game shortly after, he looked up and counted somewhere around 30 family and friends.
He laughs about the pressure of it. Thousands of strangers in the seats are just fine for him. His family watching? Different story.
"I try not to think about it too much, I feel like having them up there is almost more pressure than having the 8,000-10,000 people we can hold at our stadium,” Hanchey joked. “The day I hit the opposite-field homer to tie the game in the ninth, I didn’t even know my dad was there. Superstitiously I get more nervous.”
It’s been a great return to his home state with the support from Hanchey’s family who ran around the makeshift wiffleball field just down the road.