Sure enough, Waite became the 33rd Vanderbilt student-athlete to represent his country with USA Baseball, including a national-best 28 under head coach Tim Corbin. He then broke new ground by participating in July’s inaugural World Collegiate Baseball Championship in Taiwan. From the Fourth of July fireworks, in the sky and at the plate, to an extra-inning gold-medal thriller against Japan on the other side of the world, he turned a season to forget into a summer to remember. And just maybe set the stage for more.
“I think I’ve grown a lot as a player this summer,” Waite said, “Just being able to see how other people play the game, play with some of the best in the country and see how they prepare and take that back to Vandy. Playing all these games sets me up for this year at Vanderbilt and for our team having a great year—getting to a regional and winning that regional, going to a super regional and then making it to Omaha. That’s always the ultimate goal. That’s what we’re pushing for. And that’s what we know we can do.”
Making His Case
After winning a title in the Cape Cod League a year ago, Waite had always planned on going back to Massachusetts and the famed wood-bat league this summer. But the unexpectedly abrupt end of Vanderbilt’s season short of the NCAA regionals left him with more time than he would have hoped at home in Arizona between collegiate and summer competition.
“Playing for Vanderbilt just means so much to me,” Waite said. “It was my dream to go here. And I just knew that that we could not have another year like that. I had to put everything I could into just getting better every day, so day one after I got home, I was back in the cages, back working out.”
He was still in Arizona—in the car with his mom, in fact—when Corbin called. Prior to the SEC Tournament, Waite’s agent had tipped him off that an invite from USA Baseball was a possibility. He assumed he’d find out any update the same way, so when his coach called, it never even crossed his mind that it might be with the best news he’d heard in weeks. But Corbin first coached with USA Baseball more than a quarter of a century ago, even before he arrived in Nashville. Giving players an opportunity to represent their country isn’t a novelty or bonus; it’s as much a part of the value system underpinning the program as the litany of MLB draft picks coming out of Nashville. This was news he wanted to deliver.
“It just meant so much more to hear it from a role model like him,” Waite said. “That was just a true blessing. Me and my mom had a good moment there.”
After a quick stop on the Cape, Waite made his way to USA Baseball’s National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina, near the end of June. Approximately 60 current collegians were invited to participate in the selection process, going through a few days of practices before splitting into the Stars and Stripes squads. The teams played 10 exhibition games split over eight days in locations around North Carolina and Virginia, capped by the Fourth of July finale in Fayetteville’s nearly 10,000-capacity Segra Stadium.
“I just had to put the pressure away and play the kids’ game that I grew up playing,” Waite said of the intense tryout. “I knew I wanted to go to Taiwan and represent my country and play against the best in the world, but I also knew that I had to put pressure aside and just play the game freely. I would make an impression by playing the game how I usually play it.”
Then all he could do was wait.
It was approaching midnight by the time the players got back to Cary after the finale. Knowing the final roster decision would come soon, they gathered in small groups. Waite recalls sitting in his room with Auburn’s Chase Fralick, Georgia’s Kolby Branch and Arizona State’s Landon Hairston, the first two familiar SEC foes and the other an equally familiar high school rival from their hometown of Queen Creek, Arizona.
Shortly after midnight, as July 5 arrived, their phones started buzzing with text messages. It was good news. Within 24 hours, all four of them would be on the plane to Taiwan.
Playing for Gold
After flying for most of a day and covering approximately 8,000 miles, slightly longer than the typical SEC road trip, Waite and his teammates sat down to their first meal in Taichung, Taiwan. At McDonalds. To be fair, it was only a few steps from the team hotel and just about the only thing open that late at night. And unlike a lot of college students on summer travels, they weren’t there for sightseeing. They had one week and a lot of baseball to play.
The collegiate national team is a fixture in the USA Baseball catalog. In addition to coaches like Corbin, alumni include current major leaguers Alex Bregman and Kyle Schwarber and former stars like Barry Larkin and Jim Abbott. It’s the team that represented the country in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics and has regularly played series against peers from around the globe. New this summer was the opportunity to be crowned collegiate world champion, with the top four teams in the men’s baseball world rankings participating in the new event.
Ranked third, Team USA nonetheless rolled to a 3-0 record in pool play, including a 3-2 win against top-ranked Japan. Waite started all three pool games at second base, amassing two hits, including a triple, two walks, two runs and an RBI. The unbeaten record earned the Americans direct passage into the gold-medal game, a rematch against Japan.
Once again in the starting lineup in the finale, Waite crossed the plate with the game’s first run in the third inning. He later added a walk but exited the game as it headed for extra innings tied 2-2. After the teams traded runs in the 10th, Japan scored three runs in the top of the 11th to take a 6-3 lead. Team USA loaded the bases in the bottom of the inning but had to settle for the silver medal after stranding the runners.
“I didn’t want to take off my jersey,” Waite said. “It was a harsh 30 minutes after the game. I didn’t want to have that feeling of taking that jersey off for the last time in Taiwan. It meant so much to me to be able to play for my country. I really hope I get another chance to wear that USA across my chest again.”
Like most baseball fans, Waite was glued to the World Baseball Classic this past spring. There was no sequel to the previous edition’s epic final between the United States and Japan, Shohei Ohtani striking out Mike Trout for the final out, but there are few rivalries like that between the baseball superpowers on either side of the Pacific. Waite is now part of that fraternity. And if the trip didn’t afford much time to sample local history or cuisine, it successfully brought together people with different lived experiences but a shared passion. As was the case in Cary, sitting around his room with erstwhile SEC rivals waiting for the final roster, Waite spent some of his final hours in Taiwan connecting with the people who best understood the experience—Team Japan.
“Being able to play those guys was a cool experience—they know how to play the game the right way,” Waite said. “We got to talk to them afterward in the hotel, just being able to joke around and hang out with them. It was great getting to know what they play for. I mean, it was a dream come true for all those guys to be able to play for their country, too, so there’s so much mutual respect. Even if I obviously would have rather seen us come out on top.”
More to Come
He was home for a week after the tournament, just about enough time for the accumulated jet lag and laundry. Then it was back to Cape Cod. Rest wasn’t in the cards. He wanted to try and help his teammates with the Bourne Braves defend the title they won a year ago. They nearly pulled it off, too. With Waite’s .440 average and 1.203 OPS in the postseason, Bourne put aside an up-and-down regular season and reached the championship series.
He’s played a lot of baseball and logged a lot of miles since the final out of the SEC Tournament. There are memories he’ll never forget, starting with that magical Fourth of July. As he returns to Vanderbilt and the boundless opportunity of a new year, there are also lessons about what it means to play for something bigger than yourself and lead by example.
And, of course, there are mementos. Each player was allowed to return home with a jersey.
“I’m keeping it game worn,” Waite said. “It’s got a bunch of dirt and sweat on it, but I’m framing it.”
As a reminder of where he’s been. And where he and Vanderbilt want to go.
