By Cristopher Tremblay, Staff Sports Writer

James Tindall began playing baseball at an early age and found that he loved the sport so much that he wished that he continuous play the sport for eternity. 

“It’s a fun game that I never get tired of and I seem to be pretty decent at,” he said. “If I could play baseball all the time,  that would be really great.”

As the Grafton athlete is completing his final season with the Gators, he is looking forward to moving on. Tindall will be attending Bryant University in North Smithfield, RI in the fall, unfortunately he is unsure of what the Division 1 school holds for him in terms of his baseball career.

“Bryant is a good school and definitely the one that I wanted to go to for academics (Accounting), but right now I’m not committed to play baseball for them,” Tindall said. “I’m still going to keep my options open and continue to keep in touch with the baseball program. I think that my off-speed stuff may impress the coaches and if I put on some muscle back on I may have a shot.”

If for some reason he can not play for the Bulldogs on the collegiate level, he may seek out a club program.

According to Grafton coach Brian Andersen, baseball has been the senior’s main focus his entire life and Tindall always had aspirations of pitching on the collegiate level, but at this moment he realizes that school is important.

Growing up, the Grafton native always found himself to be bigger than the majority of his peers, so he gravitated toward first base, a position that he says called out to him.

“Being a bigger individual, both height and weight wise, first base seemed to be the perfect position for me,” he said. “All the first basemen that I saw on the college and professional levels all seemed to be bigger – it made sense that I fit right in at the position.”

Playing for the Evolution Baseball Club out of West Boylston, Tindall was introduced to pitching, something that he had never considered before. Young baseball athletes are moved around the field into different positions all the time and while playing for the U12 team, Tindall was asked to give pitching a try and it was love at first sight.

“Pitching just happened; it wasn’t something that I was looking for. Once I got involved with it I found that I was in love with the position and wanted to develop and get advice on improving my pitches,” Tindall said. “The position definitely has self-motivation and I wanted to be on the mound, but it’s something that would have never happened if not for my coaches putting me there.”

Approximately two years after being introduced to pitching, Tindall found that he was doing quite well and it occurred to him at that moment in time that baseball may be a lifelong experience for him. With that thought process running through his mind, he decided to focus on pitching and made it a priority to develop a curveball and change up while working on getting better. He also knew that as he aged he was going to have to keep his pitching awareness ahead of the batters if he wanted to continue to stay successful.

Upon entering high school, he knew that he wanted to play baseball for Grafton, but being a shy and nervous person he didn’t know how he’d do at tryouts. Although he didn’t earn a full-time position with the varsity team he was put on the junior varsity squad as a swing player where he got the opportunity to sit on the varsity bench and was able to get into three games as a pitcher giving up a couple of hits and no runs.

“As a freshman on the mound looking down at hitters that were like 6’4” and 200 pounds it was really shocking,” he said. “Luckily I was ready and confident to attack them. They may have been scary looking on the outside, but not on the inside so it didn’t intimidate me.”

Entering his sophomore season the team was hit with a pitching crisis and Tindall was thrust into position of being the team’s ace on the hill. Once again, he didn’t let the narrative disturb him and he went on to have a great season, one in which his confidence on the varsity level expanded. 

While on an upward trend in the sport, Tindall was hit with something that he did not see coming. Near the end of the season he found that he was having some stomach issues, so his coach thought.

“He was forcing himself to eat, but just couldn’t keep anything down,” Andersen said. “It wasn’t until his travel coach called me to let me know the stomach issues were still happening that really alarmed me. James had lost about 100 pounds at that point.”

Tindall went and saw a doctor and was diagnosed with an eating disorder and over four months he lost 90 pounds without event trying to; the Gator pitcher said it was a low point in his life.

“I had uncharacteristically thrown up and it struck me hard, causing me not wanting to eat,” he said. “I was only eating about 200 calories a day while still playing baseball in the heat of the summer and I really wasn’t drinking a lot either.”

After finally seeing a doctor who Tindall said pushed him in the right direction, tracking his eating habits and seeing him once a week. Now he is feeling much better and looking to gain back some of the weight that he lost during the ordeal. 

“When I returned to the team this year, I felt really strange. I have always been big my whole life and now I’m the same size of all my peers – it was weird,” he said. “But I’m gaining some weight and my energy level is coming back.”

Andersen is glad that his ace is alright and getting back to his old self. 

“He’s been the heartbeat of our team the last three years, pitching over 100 innings and getting a lot of the quality starts,” the Grafton coach said. “He’s always had a good three pitch mix that keeps batters off balance. Originally we were unsure that he was going to be able to pitch this year, but he’s back and pitching well.”

Thus far, at the time of this writing, Tindall has notched two complete games, throwing 19 innings while only allowing 14 hits, walking 7 batters and striking out 17 and has not allowed an earned run. The team is 8-4 and the pitcher is confident that the Gators can make a run through the tournament.