Anderson's Shannon blends with team, piles big stats

ANDERSON TWP. –

He still sleeps with his baseball glove.

"I know it's kind of weird, but I do," admitted Anderson High School senior Zack Shannon. "I'm still excited every time I get to to play. I love the game."

Shannon pitches and plays first base for Anderson. He played two seasons at Moeller, but sat out last season when he transferred. He's entered his senior season on fire, among the Eastern Cincinnati Conference leaders in batting average, home runs, strikeouts and earned run average.

No less an authority than former Reds general manager Jim Bowden said he is a professional prospect.

"Zack Shannon RHP Anderson HS Cincinnati, OH ....legit big league prospect...must follow...must draft," Bowden tweeted April 18.

His fastball zips past hitters in the low 90s, but Shannon said his best pitch is the curve, which clocks in at the 80-m.p.h. range. He doesn't care where on the field he plays, as long as he does.

"I don't at all," Shannon said. "I like pitching and being in control of the game, but I like first base, too. I think I have a pretty good glove and I can help there, too. Anything coach asks me to do, I'm in. I just want to win."

Redskins head coach Chris Newton likes the attitude.

"He is maybe the most intelligent player on the field I have ever coached," he said. "He brings a lot to our team from a baseball IQ perspective, and as a coach that's really fun to watch.

"He's a complete player. It's rare to have a kid who can pitch and hit and field like he does."

Yet Newton said he's more impressed with how Shannon has blended in and how the first-place Redskins are transforming from a collection of individuals into a team.

A pair of April 18 wins against ECC co-leader Kings showed how.

Shannon got credit for winning the first game 11-7; he pitched the first five innings of a contest suspended by weather earlier in the week.

He came on to pitch in the sixth inning of the second game with a 4-3 lead, but surrendered two runs without the Knights getting the ball out of the infield. The 'Skins manufactured a run in the bottom of the sixth to tie and Shannon retired Kings 1-2-3 - including a pair of strikeouts - in the top of the seventh.

Shannon ripped a single to right to load the bases with one out in the bottom of the seventh before Connor Blandford drove in the winning run with a grounder to first. The throw came home but pulled the Kings catcher off the plate, allowing Joe Crago to score.

"They get the lead off our big gun and we very easily could have folded up," Newton said. "But these guys pick each other up. They battle. That's what you like to see. That's how they become a team."

Shannon has a scholarship offer to Chipola (Fla.) College - the same junior college that produced Major League star Jose Bautista - should he not get drafted in June.

"If I don't get that call, I still have a great opportunity in front of me," Shannon said. "I just have to keep coming out and busting my butt and showing I have what it takes to play at the next level, whatever the next level is."

Shannon hopes to finish the high school level with a deep tournament run.

"Nobody gives us enough credit for how good we are this year," he said. "We play every game like it's the state championship. That's what we want."

Online extra

For video from the Anderson-Kings nightcap April 18, please visit http://cin.ci/1gJ7EVc .