Bigfork native aspires to a professional baseball career
<p>Jonathan White spent some time at home with his family and dog, Bender, while on break last week.</p>
College graduates face fierce competition in the job market. Bigfork native, Jonathan White, 23, is upping the ante with his aspirations for a career as a professional baseball player in the minor leagues.
White is a fifth-year senior at the University of Montana with a major in marketing, but baseball is his passion. It has been a part of White’s life since t-ball when he was six-years-old and he has no intention of giving it up after graduation this May.
White played for the Flathead Valley All-Stars when he was 9-12 years old, then the Glacier All-Stars from 2002 to 2005. He moved to the Kalispell Lakers in 2005 and played for them until he graduated from Bigfork High School in 2007.
Throughout his entire career White played alongside Brad Bell. Bell’s father, Joe Bell, was their coach. They remain teammates on the Grizzlies. A knee injury his sophomore year of college nearly knocked him out of the game for good.
“It was hard, I didn’t know if I wanted to continue to play or give up that part of my life,” White said.
After knee surgery, he came back swinging and won six games as starting pitcher for the Grizzlies, threw 42 strikeouts, four complete games and only one homerun got past him last season. He currently holds a 2.45 ERA, 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings and is the lowest in walks allowed per nine innings in D1 club baseball.
White was also undefeated for all conference play until last year, and is currently 19-1.
During the Grizzlies first tournament of the year in Mesquite, Nev. on March 1 against Utah Valley State, White pitched five innings with 11 strike-outs, no runs and only two hits.
“My family is the biggest believers in me, they never miss any of my games,” White said. “They travel to all of them, Arizona and Las Vegas, all throughout Washington and Oregon too. They’ve gone at least 10,000 miles throughout my life.”
Before graduation, White hopes to help the Grizzlies rank nationally and win the Northern Pacific Regional Tournament this May while earning the title of All-American.
After that, it’s off to minor league tryouts.
“I haven’t applied yet, it’s mostly hear-say, connections scouted or drafted,” White said. “All my teammates want me to try (out) to see if I got as much talent as they say I do.”
Although nothing is official, the father of one of White’s teammates on the Grizzlies has some connections with the Giants.