NEW RIEGEL — It might be the biggest rush on the village since a farmer from Riegel, Germany, named Anthony Schindler and his neighbors settled here in the 1830s.
And you will have to trust us, but it is not just for the ribs at New Riegel Cafe. The visitors are major league baseball scouts.
They have made a beeline to northwest Ohio this spring for Michael Kirian, a 6-foot-6 senior pitcher at New Riegel High School who brandishes a left arm as big as his future.
With a fastball that flashes up to 93 mph and a devastating curve, Kirian — the top-rated prospect in the state — has a no-lose slate of options.
One is the University of Louisville, where he could pitch on one of the tallest stages in college baseball. He pledged to the powerhouse Cardinals his sophomore year.
The other choice, well, that’s why a half dozen or so radar gun-wielding scouts attend each of his starts. If a major league organization tabs Kirian high enough in the upcoming MLB draft — and the money is right — he could turn pro straight out of high school.
“That’s for the scouts to decide,” Kirian said. “I gave myself a great opportunity at Louisville, and right now that’s my plan. But we’re just taking everything day by day.
“I’m just trying to live in the moment and enjoy this senior year playing with my best friends. It’s come and gone in a second.”
Incidentally, that also describes his starts. If baseball confronts a pace of play problem, nobody told Kirian, who has made a habit of fast-forwarding through opponents. He has ceded all of six hits and struck out 61 batters over 25 scoreless innings.
Last week, we joined the crowd that ringed the fences at Tiffin Calvert for Kirian’s anticipated duel against Kent State commit Peyton Deats. The two aces swapped zeroes for eight innings, leaving the state-mandated pitch-count limit and the looming darkness as the only hopes for either lineup. With the game turned over to the bullpens, the hosts won 1-0 in the 10th.
Asked afterward how his team prepared for Kirian, Calvert coach Brian Rothrock smiled. “Honestly,” he said, “the last two days we pumped our pitching machine up as fast as it can go.”
And how fast can it go?
“About 135,” he said.
Fine, so maybe he didn’t crank it all the way up, but you get the idea.
“These scouts have got to be just drooling,” Rothrock said. “He’s the real deal.”
And like with the ribs here, New Riegel’s best-kept secret is out.
After missing last year with a torn ACL suffered on a dunk during basketball season, he is no longer a curiosity tucked away in a small town outside the warm-weather southern baseball belt — two of the biggest biases against any baseball prospect. This year, every big league organization knows of New Riegel, a one-stoplight village of 249 about 50 miles southeast of Toledo.
You might call these Blue Jackets (8-4) a once-in-a-lifetime team. But even in this proud, closely woven baseball community — New Riegel won the state title in 1969 — that may be shortchanging the alignment of stars.
As if one big fish was not enough, the pond here also features Kirian’s good buddy, Alex Theis, a senior left-hander who is recovering from Tommy John surgery. He recently signed to play baseball at Ohio State. Yes, a school district with less than 180 students in grades 7-12 has two Division I recruits in the same class.
Imagine the odds.
“That is crazy,” New Riegel coach Gregg Hughes said. “I don’t know how that happens, but it’s really exciting. It’s something we’re not used to, obviously. The first time the scouts came, you saw all of our kids peeking out of the dugout.”
Hughes has coached Kirian since he was 13 and calls him “great person and teammate.” The big-time prospect doesn’t have a big-timing bone in his body. After the Calvert game, he briefly chatted with a scout by the fence, then politely told a waiting reporter he first had to run with his teammates. He then disappeared into the gloaming, running back and forth from foul pole to pole.
Kirian is savoring his last weeks at home as he burnishes his resume.
His father, Gene, said the family is keeping their options open, but his son’s plan is to attend Louisville. “Baseball is a dream,” he said, “but you have to have that education as a backup.”
That’s great for Louisville. Less so for the village’s wave of new visitors.
Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, 419-724-6084 or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.
First Published April 23, 2017, 4:33 a.m.
