Dietrich’s Song

Georgia Tech’s Derek Dietrich is living up to his hype, and might be the best freshmen player in the country

 By Jamie Lay

The song’s first notes echoing from the speakers in the outfield signal it’s Derek Dietrich’s turn. The looming chords and electric drumbeat of Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight” carry the freshmen from the batter’s circle to the batter’s box. On the right side of home plate he sets up, first digging his left toe into the dirt with the ferocity of a miner’s axe, then planting his right cleat near the front.

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord

Dietrich bends his knees slightly and stares past his right shoulder toward the pitcher’s mound.

I’ve been waiting for this moment, all my life, Oh Lord

He taps the plate with his bat, then extends it toward the pitcher with his right hand. He returns it slowly and deliberately to his shoulder and repeats.

Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord, Oh Lord

The barrel of the bat oscillates above Dietrich’s left shoulder, hovering like a hummingbird. The ball leaves the pitcher’s hand and Dietrich’s eyes focus like an eagle swooping in for the kill. He swings. The aluminum bat sends the ball high into the air. It disappears into the night sky as the sound of contact echoes through midtown Atlanta like screeching tires.

The ball falls into a gap in centerfield and skips to the wall. Dietrich rounds first base and heads for second. He passes the bag, stops and returns.

The Georgia Tech faithful rise from the metal bleachers of Russ Chandler Stadium to applaud Dietrich, who has hit his team-leading 11th double of the season. Standing on second base Dietrich in tall navy socks, black eye paint and a long navy undershirt looks like the ball players he’s being compared with.

“Nomar [Garciaparra]. [Jason] Varietek. Jay Payton. [Mark] Texieria,” said Georgia Tech coach Danny Hall. “I would say he’s on track with what they were able to accomplish as freshmen. I would say his power is as good as any of these guys, and I would include Texieria.”

Moments later designated hitter Luke Murton, brother of Chicago Cubs outfielder Matt Murton, hits a ball into the outfield. Dietrich starts for third and heads home for his team-leading 33rd run. It gives the Yellow Jackets a 2-1 lead over rival Georgia. His teammates flood from the dugout to greet the freshmen shortstop with high fives and back slaps.

A week earlier when Dietrich enters the cafeteria on the second floor of the athletic building, no one takes notice. There aren’t any high fives or back slaps waiting for the 18-year-old. He’s simply another student in tennis shoes and a Yankees cap grabbing lunch. He heads straight to the burrito counter.

“I’ll have two,” he says. “With everything except hot peppers.”

Then he grabs a couple of scoops of baked ziti and a banana before snagging two plastic cups full with water, no ice.

Dietrich sits with his fellow freshman teammate Zach Brewster, the sports information director Cheryl Watts and a gentlemen in a yellow button down shirt. Once seated Dietrich grasps one of the burritos with his hands. He positions it near his mouth and readies for a bite. Before he can, the man sitting across from him in the yellow shirt poses a question.

“How did you end up here at Georgia Tech?” he asks.

Without taking a bite, Dietrich reluctantly sets the burrito back on the plate and begins to tell his story.

Dietrich’s grandfather Steve Demeter was born in the height of the Great Depression, Jan. 27, 1935, in one of the hardest hit areas of the country, Homer, Pa. Fortunately for Demeter he was the best baseball player in Northern Pennsylvania, good enough in fact that at 18 he left for a tryout with the Detroit Tigers.

“I walked into spring training and said, ‘This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought,’” recalled Demeter.

A right-handed third baseman, he signed with the Tigers in 1953 and shuffled through the minors for six years until July 29, 1959 when he got a shot at the show against the Baltimore Orioles. In the bottom of the 7th inning, pinch-hitting for third basemen Orville Veal, Demeter doubled to left-center scoring the Tigers only run that day.

Demeter’s “cup of coffee” in the Majors was more like half a cup and a bagel to go. He played 11 games in the 1959 season. In his next 17 at-bats he had one hit. On April 12, 1960 the Tigers traded Demeter to the Cleveland Indians for Norm Cash. But for the next 52 years he would remain in baseball as a hitting instructor for the Pirates and an Ohio-based scout. During that time he scouted Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez and met nearly every college coach to visit the Northern Ohio-Michigan area including Georgia Tech’s Coach Hall.

Along the way, Demeter married and had a daughter named Cathi. His daughter married Richard Dietrich and they had a daughter named Dawn and on July 18, 1989 a son named Derek.

“He started when he was really young,” said Cathi. “He just kind of came out playing. Anything, any kind of stick or round object was a bat and a ball before he even knew what baseball was. He was throwing everything and hitting everything with sticks.”

One day when Dawn was lying on a raft in the Dietrich’s swimming pool, he found the chlorine filter. He picked it out of the pool and threw it at his sister. It came at such velocity that it cracked her skull. She was fine but still remembers the incident.

“He’s cracked my head open three times,” said Dawn, who text messages her brother “Play with your heart” before every game.

Finally Dietrich’s parents bought him a plastic bat when he was about three-years old. Dietrich picked up the bat and started swinging lefty. Demeter, who was home visiting his daughter, saw Dietrich swinging the bat.

“Does he always swing like that?” Demeter asked.

“Yeah,” Cathi replied.

“Oh, leave him like that. Don’t touch him! Don’t change a thing!”

With baseball always on his mind Demeter wanted his daughter to preserve Dietrich’s natural tendency to swing with his right hand, so if ever he decided to play baseball he would be a left-handed hitter, a valuable minority in baseball. This was the first of many ways Demeter influenced his grandson in baseball.

When Dietrich was 12, he began to display his raw talent and natural ability for the game. A team from Sandusky, Ohio competed against Dietrich’s team in a Little League tournament. Following the tournament the team from Sandusky asked Dietrich to join their team. Sandusky won the Little League World Series and Dietrich was named the MVP.

For the tournament he visited Cooperstown, N.Y. On the trip he learned about his grandfather’s baseball career. Demeter has several items in the Baseball Hall of Fame library from playing in minor leagues at Durham and New York. Dietrich had heard the stories about his grandfather, but this made the experience tangible to the young Dietrich.

“Everywhere he’s gone,” Cathi said. “He’s had some connection with my dad.”

In high school his team traveled to South Carolina for a tournament. On the way back he and his parents stopped at Durham Stadium where Demeter played in the minors. The family snuck into the old stadium with a bag of balls, a glove and bat. Dietrich fielded balls at third base, the position his grandpa once played. Then his dad pitched him a few balls.

Dietrich returned home to Ohio and immediately told his grandfather.

“Did you hit it over that building in right field and over that roof, the gray roof?” Demeter asked.

“Yeah, I know just what you are talking about,” Dietrich said.

“That was probably one of the biggest inspirations for Derek,” Cathi said. “To go there where his grandpa was not much older than him and be on the field where he started his career. It was awesome.”

The next year Dietrich was an Aflac All-American. He traveled around the country playing against other great players. At the time he led his high school team in every offensive category and made few errors as the team’s shortstop. He was also the team’s closer with a fastball clocked at 93 m.p.h. – a scout’s dream.

Until he injured his shoulder, Dietrich was near the top of every scout’s shortstop list. The Houston Astros picked him in the third round. But with some reservations about his injury Houston offered Dietrich slot money, the salary designated by Major League Baseball for a particular draft pick. Dietrich refused, deciding it was better to rehab his injury and play three years at Georgia Tech.

“We really fretted over whether we were going to get him to school,” Hall said. “He, like everybody who has ever played, wants to play professional baseball. We probably got lucky getting him to school.”

For the first six months at Georgia Tech, Dietrich worked on the shoulder. There he became friends with Brewster who was rehabbing a blood clot in his shoulder. In the fall they watched the intrasquad games from the sidelines.

Watching the game against UGA there was no sign of Dietrich’s injury. With Georgia rallying in the 7th inning Rich Poythress hits a grounder near second base. Dietrich grabs it. He tags the base with his cleat and throws a rifle to first for an unassisted double play. His teammates congratulate him and they run back to the dugout.

“He has the stuff that’s very tough to teach,” said Wake Forest coach Rick Rembielak, who recruited Dietrich. “You see the arm strength in that regard. I think he’s got a good feel for the game. He knows how to approach it.”

After the win over Georgia, Dietrich is one of the few remaining Yellow Jackets on the field. He completes three post-game interviews and stands with Cheryl Watts near the dugout. He is looking out at the empty field. “In the Air Tonight” plays again in the background.

The lyrics belong to Phil Collins, but the moment belongs to Dietrich.

I’ve seen your face before my friend/But I don’t know if you know who I am. SU