Saunders Knew His Calling While at West Springfield

Joe Saunders, as a freshman at in the late 1990s, remembers meeting with his guidance counselor.

She asked what he wanted to do in life and Saunders replied that he wanted to be a Major League baseball player.

"Let us think of something more realistic," was her reply, according to Saunders, standing in the visiting clubhouse at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

Springfield native Saunders can laugh at that memory now, as the 30-year-old is a left-handed starting pitcher with the Arizona Diamondbacks of the National League. He broke into the Major Leagues in 2005 with the Angels, and is now in his first season with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

A former Virginia Tech standout, Saunders was the losing pitcher on Monday at Nationals Park, as he pitched in front of about 30 family and friends. In six innings he gave up four earned runs as the Nats won, 4-1.

"It is nice to come back and see familiar faces. It is also frustrating because you want to do your best, obviously," said Saunders, who said it was second start in Washington in his big league career.

Saunders gives a lot of credit to Ron Tugwell, his former varsity coach at West Springfield. "He taught us how to play the game in every aspect," Saunders said. "He taught us never to slow down emotionally. I can remember sitting in his office (at school) and talking about stuff. He was a big part of my life."

Tugwell still coaches youth baseball in Northern Virginia.  "[Saunders'] ability to re-focus and focus and not let things bother him has always been good," said Tugwell. "He kept getting better every year."

Tugwell said Saunders was 4-0 on varsity as a sophomore, 11-0 on the state title team in 1998 as a junior at West Springfield, and 4-0 as a senior before he lost his first high school game, to of Burke.

Saunders was acquired by the D-backs in a trade last season. He already had a home in Arizona with his wife, Shanel, and two daughters, before he was picked up by the D-backs. "If I had to be traded, it was the best team to be traded to," he said.

Saunders is now 8-11 with an ERA of 3.98 going into his next start, at home Saturday against San Diego. His overall big league mark is 65-50 with an ERA of 4.23 in 154 games, all of which have been starting assignments.

"He is a bulldog. He is a competitor," Charles Nagy, the pitching coach for Arizona, told Patch before Wednesday's game. "He has a good change up and a good sinker."

Saunders said he was about eight years old when he played organized baseball for the first time with West Springfield Little League.

Saunders was visiting his grandmother in Springfield on Tuesday when the earthquake hit. "I thought the garage door was going up" when the quake hit, he said.

That brought to mind another major event that took place in Virginia.

Saunders received special permission from MLB commissioner Bud Selig to wear a Virginia Tech hat to honor the victims of the April 20, 2007, shootings at the school. In that game, he won for the Angels with six shutout innings against Seattle in an 8-4 victory.

The Arizona Diamondbacks face the Nationals in the last game of their series Thursday night at Nationals Park.

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One in a continuing series on how local residents are pursuing their American Dream.