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Passion for Baseball, Family Fuels Buschmann 4/28/2005 by Courtney Dimling At high school in St. Louis, Matt Buschmann’s father never missed one of his baseball games. “With my dad it was always a big thing because when we were living in Florida and then Des Moines he was always away with work. That’s why we moved. So when we got to St. Louis, he kept every stat I had. He was at every game? He has a whole book with all my stats about every game I’ve ever played in.” Buschmann’s father, Clem, can relate to his son’s athletic ambitions– he too played college sports. “He was a big sports guy in college. He went to Williamsville College and ran track and played football–he was just a great athlete. He ran like a 4.3 40 and his senior year playing football there he averaged something near 10 yards per carry which is just ridiculous. He still holds records at the school for track. So as far as my whole athletic genes go, I guess I got it from him,” Matt says with a smile. “He was a big football player, and I tried to play football freshman year of high school. I love football and I loved playing it, but I just figured it’d probably be bad if I got hurt playing football in terms of baseball.” His dedication to baseball has paid off. Head coach Tim Corbin has called Buschmann a “tremendously conditioned athlete,” and in his first two years at Vanderbilt, he has made 53 appearances–more than any other pitcher. Even now at Vanderbilt, with his family living far away, they still make time to come see Buschmann play. “They split it up. My little sister is at home, so they’ll take turns coming down to see the games–my mom will come down one weekend, then my dad will come down the next–my dad cam down this past weekend and he might come back down this weekend. They come as much as they can,” Buschmann explains. One of his half brothers, Jeff Buschmann, a Vanderbilt alum, lives in Nashville and is a fixture as well at Buschmann’s games. In fact, most of his extended family is planning on coming into town when Vanderbilt faces Florida. “My grandparents are even coming — they haven’t really seen me play since I’ve been in college, but they’ll all come down because my grandma’s birthday is coming up.” Last year, as a sophomore, he pitched 82.1 innings and numbered 61 strikeouts. Buschmann is draft-eligible this year, but he plans on finishing up his college career here at Vanderbilt through his senior year. “Oh, I want to play baseball. I mean, that’s what I say and that’s what I want to do. You know, you’re at this point where you either have to go full into it and commit or otherwise it’s not worth it. At the same time, knowing I have a degree from Vanderbilt, which most professional baseball players don’t, helps a lot. It helps to kind of say, ‘I can get out of this earlier if I know I’m not going to make it’ and use my Vanderbilt degree to be successful.” |
