A long journey to the pros

October 5, 2011 is a date East Meadow High School graduate Tyler Levine will never forget.

Levine, who is now 21, was coming off his freshman season pitching for SUNY Old Westbury, and had been named the Skyline Conference Rookie of the Year, posting a 4-1 record with a 3.12 earned run average for the Panthers.

Then, on that fateful date nearly three years ago, Levine was in an automobile accident, suffering nerve damage to his hip and throwing shoulder. “It felt like a knife was in my hip,” Levine recalled. “And every time I tried to pitch, it felt as if I had pitched the day before.”

Levine never duplicated his freshman year statistics. He failed to make it to the fifth inning in any of his three starts as a sophomore. It didn’t get any better his junior year, with his ERA shooting up to 12.18. His senior season, he was only called upon to pitch 6 1/3 innings.

But what looked like a classic tale of “what might have been” turned into “what is” for Levine, when he made his professional debut in late July, just two months after his college career ended.

Levine’s journey from a Division III college afterthought to a professional was initiated by SUNY Old Westbury pitching coach Lou Bernardi, who, despite Levine’s struggles, saw a glimmer of promise. “Lou told me I could pitch elsewhere,” said Levine.

Bernardi, who played professional baseball in the independent minors, saw how Levine had developed poor mechanics in the three years after suffering his injuries. “I needed a year off and needed to rehab,” Levine said. “Instead I was pushed to pitch through the pain, and that affected my mechanics and was counterproductive.”

The answer for Levine was the Texas Summer League, a showcase league based in Fort Worth designed for free agent players to be placed on independent minor league teams.

And it just so happened that one of Bernardi’s former managers, Scott Nathanson, would become Levine’s manager.