1 day Ago By Zant Reyez
Kyler LeRoux loves baseball, despite the game showing tough love at points during his career.LeRoux, who graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2020, hasn’t had the easiest path in continuing to play the game as he nears 30 years old. He wasn’t a five-star high school prospect.
He didn’t have a slew of Division I scholarships arriving at his home while playing at Longmont High School.When he tried out for baseball times, he was told “no” multiple times — the kind of rejection that might have turned others away from the sport altogether.But LeRoux is still in the game.
In late May, LeRoux is set to head down to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to play with the Fuego, an independent baseball team in the Pecos League of the Professional Baseball Clubs. He signed a two-year contract, which may be the last baseball contract he signs.Despite all the tough love he’s found in baseball, LeRoux takes it with a smile, finding the positive through it all as he’s kept his playing dreams alive.
LeRoux graduated from Longmont in 2014. His name is in the Trojans’ record book as he is tied for third all-time with 11 doubles in a season and is No. 15 all-time with 26 RBIs in a season.
He is tied for eighth for most hits in a career with 77 and is in a three-way tie for third with 21 doubles in a career.In his senior year, Longmont placed third in the 4A state baseball championships.After graduation, he set his sights on taking his talents to the University of Northern Colorado baseball team.
His goal was to walk on.LeRoux tried to walk onto the team twice, and twice he didn’t make it. But instead of hanging up his cleats and glove, he found another way to stay in the game: the Bears club baseball team.
LeRoux and his friend and former club baseball teammate Oscar Acevedo described the level of competition as players who had solid prep careers, who might have received scholarships from junior colleges or lower division schools, but for whatever reason didn’t utilize them.Playing at the club level doesn’t mean it’s a bunch of guys who slam a six-pack in the parking lot then hit the field. The club level is competitive and the players have high-level skills, but it doesn’t come with the rigorous commitments that come at the DI level.
The team is registered with the National Club Baseball Organization. The Bears are in the Mid-America – West conference. The seven-team conference includes Colorado State University, the University of Colorado Boulder, Air Force and others.
Northern Colorado and Air Force are the only Colorado colleges that field DI baseball teams.“I wanted to keep my dream alive. I realized that the club baseball team was an opportunity,” LeRoux said.
From 2018-20, LeRoux played for the club team, mainly as an outfielder.When it came to the club team, though, just because you’ve played a certain position for several years doesn’t mean you’re exempt from playing other positions.Acevedo, an Illinois native, played on the team from 2017-20.
He was a catcher from Little League through high school, but when he joined the club team, he wanted to give his knees a rest. Like LeRoux, he tried to walk onto the DI team at Northern Colorado but didn’t make the cut.The club team usually had 18 players during LeRoux and Acevedo’s years.
Unlike the DI team, the club didn’t have the depth or medical treatment to overcome injuries. Further cutting down the roster, some players would simply stop showing up because they wanted to enjoy college instead of playing ball.Some games, Acevedo said, the team would only have nine or 10 players.
“It would get very slim and difficult, and that’s where sometimes other players would play positions they’ve never played before,” he said.Sometimes the team had pitchers on the mound who had never pitched a day in their lives. Sometimes infielders were in the outfield, and vice versa.
Acevedo soon found himself catching again since there were no other catchers on the team.Those who were committed to the game felt discouraged when those rough times hit. Some days were gloomy, and the forecast wasn’t calling for sunny days anytime soon.
“It’s never full sunshine and rainbows,” Acevedo said. “There are rainy days, and that’s where it would get difficult and we’d get discouraged because we know that next week it’s going to be the same. Nine to 10 guys, who are passionate, showing up.
If somebody gets hurt, what do we do?”Even during those rainy days, LeRoux never let his helmet or ball cap drop, Acevedo said. LeRoux was always there to keep whoever showed up to the games and practices in good spirits.LeRoux’s kept that same spirit as he’s continued his baseball career.
Not making the Division I team hit harder than a 95-mph fastball to the back, but his love of the game overpowered any doubts.“At that stage of my life, I kinda was disappointed in myself that I let people down,” LeRoux said. “I knew I could work harder.
So that’s when I started to train harder and realized that I need to be a leader on the club baseball team and inspire those guys. To prove to the whole city that I am a great baseball player.”After UNCThe Bears’ 2020 season was cut short because of COVID-19, so LeRoux’s dream of playing baseball reached a full count.
He needed to find a way to keep in the game.With no offers at that time to play in any leagues or teams, he contemplated going overseas. That seemed to be his path until he received a spring training invite from the Saguaros baseball team in Tucson, Arizona, a professional team in the Pecos League.
He didn’t make the team.But his dream of playing baseball continued when the Saguaros head coach called the coaching staff of the Trinidad Triggers — another Pecos League team — and put in a good word for LeRoux.In 2021, he returned to Colorado and played a season for the Triggers.
Since then, he has played with Pecos League teams such as the Weirdos in Austin, Texas and the Leprechauns in Dublin, California.LeRoux said the level he’s playing at is a daily grind. From long travel days to low pay, independent baseball is in a whole different field than the big leagues.
But LeRoux is happy in the field he’s in.“I love the opportunity. I get excited seeing the fans show up.
That’s their team down there. They pull for you just like any big team in America,” he said.LeRoux turns 30 during his time with the Fuego.
He still dreams of putting on a minor league uniform one day. He also realizes that at that age, it might be time to hang up the cleats and glove and move onto the next stage of his life.Baseball, though, could still be a part of it.
Coaching could be in his future. He’d like to come back to Greeley to coach the Bears club team. If not coaching, he could teach elementary students the joys of sports.
LeRoux graduated with a degree in education, with aspirations of becoming an elementary physical education teacher.“I like that the kids are excited to go to school,” LeRoux said. “You can make fun, creative activities for them.
It shows them you can learn and have fun in school. I want to inspire them.”As LeRoux considers going on to inspire the next generation of athletes, Acevedo reflected on how LeRoux has inspired him and continues to do so.
Acevedo was a part of the Colorado Rockies grounds crew for a few years after graduating from college in 2020, but that was the last time he was that close to baseball. The two friends don’t talk daily, but they’ve kept in contact over the years.Like a gut feeling a baseball manager gets to leave his starting pitcher in the game to get the final out, Acevedo said he and LeRoux both have a gut feeling of when they need to talk to each other.
LeRoux’s greatest quality isn’t directly related to his baseball talents, Acevedo said. It’s LeRoux’s ability to listen that fosters a space where anyone can tell him anything and they know they’re being heard, not judged.Three years ago, Acevedo left Colorado and moved across the country to Virginia.
His job there had him working long hours. He began to feel isolated, when LeRoux got that gut feeling.Kyler LeRoux keeps his love for baseball alive by signing with the Santa Fe, New Mexico, to play ball for the Fuego baseball team.
The independent baseball team is part of the Pecos League. (Jim Rydbom/Staff Photographer)“He called me out of the blue and he was just like, ‘Hey, I know it’s been a while but something told me I needed to call you,’ ” Acevedo recalled. “I just broke down.
Even thinking about it now makes me emotional. I broke down. I was like, ‘I don’t know how you knew, but I just needed somebody who will be real with me.
Who will be honest with me. Who will tell me my rights, tell me my wrongs and not judge me for anything I’m about to say.’“He knew he needed to listen and provide guidance in the smallest ways.
I think that’s where Kyler will hold a deep place in my heart,” he said.“Baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical,” Yogi Berra, a New York Yankees legend and a member of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, once said, or is attributed with saying.
The game has thrown curveballs and knuckleballs LeRoux’s way. He’s missed, fouled off and taken those pitches throughout his career, but he has never backed out of the batter’s box.He has stayed in the box because he wants to prove that he be not only a good baseball player but a great leader as well.
“These professors at UNC showed me that you can be a great teacher or a coach. It doesn’t just have to be sports, you know?” LeRoux said. “They showed me that your job as a person is it inspire others, too, and not be selfish about yourself, but you need to help make your community better.
The kids around you better. I learned that from the professors here.”You’ll never see LeRoux play for a major league team.
The odds are slim of him making a minor league team. Most likely, he’ll take the field for the next two years for the Fuego and then possibly call it a career once his contract is over.For LeRoux, playing baseball has never been about becoming famous.
It’s never been about the fame or glory.It’s always been about one emotion that Acevedo saw up close and still sees currently.“It’s the love of the game,” he said.
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