Luke Heimlich Wins Pitcher of the Year Award: My Thoughts

Photo by Mark Ylen

It was announced on June 13, 2018 that Luke Heimlich, a convicted sex offender and star pitcher of the Oregon State Beavers, had won the College Baseball Foundation's National Pitcher of the Year award.

I'm not going to go in depth on the Heimlich situation because there are plenty of other outlets that have done that recently. I merely want to share how I feel about him being recognized for this award, and my thoughts on watching this team.

Being a Beaver fan my whole life, this was the toughest season of baseball I've ever gone through. After falling in love with the play styles of players like Nick Madrigal, Trevor Larnach and Michael Gretler in past seasons, I've found it hard to root for a team that is knowingly harboring a convicted sex offender.

I'm stuck between a feeling of pride for a team that has worked so hard to become one of the best in the nation, and disgust due to the situation above.

During the recent postseason run the the Beavers are currently on, I have been watching the games. On the days where Heimlich isn't pitching, I do get those prideful feelings in my stomach, it takes me back to better times.

But on the days where Heimlich is out there in Goss Stadium, pitching in front of 4,000 screaming fans, the eeriness of that feeling makes it hard to watch.

I got that feeling again while scrolling through twitter yesterday and saw a tweet announcing the news of Heimlich winning the award.

There is no doubt that Heimlich is the best college pitcher in America, but putting someone on a pedestal who has been outed for doing one o the most heinous acts a human can do, and then seeing the plethora of support in the reply tweets, I can't help but get that eerie feeling again.

I understand that these people truly believe that Luke in innocent, but after pleading guilty instead of no contest, and hearing the victims gut wrenching testimony, I just don't understand how people can feel this way.

I am going to continue watching the Beaver baseball team finish out there season playing in the College World Series. I am going to continue having these conflicted feelings as I watch. I understand it's not an ideal situation to put myself through, but that is the decision I have made. I will give my support to the players I feel deserve it, and I will quietly withhold it for Luke. That is my personal statement against it.