Photo by: Lisa Stamford
Art of the Grind
5/14/2020 9:29:00 AM | Baseball, Student Athlete, Features, Flight 45, Intellectual Development
By: Josh Liddick, Lehigh Sports Communications
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When talking about the arc of a career, it can almost always be described of having a beginning, a middle and an end. The journey always unique but the destination remains the same.
Â
It hasn't been the easiest of roads for Lehigh baseball senior Tim DiLoreto, who has fought for literally everything he possibly wanted in his life. He never had a college baseball career handed to him like some players have experienced, but he scratched and clawed to get exactly where he wanted to go heading into his final season wearing the brown and white.
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Beginning as a player with the walk-on status attached to his name, DiLoreto transformed completely into a reliable presence off the bench in his early years to being a capable starter behind the plate as a senior. Moreover, DiLoreto's leadership has grown immensely from his sophomore year all the way to this past season.
Â
For the Harleysville native, DiLoreto's family connection to Lehigh has been a great influence in determining his college decision, as it was almost a guarantee he would end up on South Mountain.
Â
"I knew I was going to come here even before my senior season [in high school]," DiLoreto said. "My mom went to Lehigh and I visited multiple times prior to even thinking about playing baseball here and it's where I wanted to be from an educational and life standpoint for engineering.
Â
"For me, it wasn't that I just wanted to play baseball here; I just wanted to be here from the beginning."
Â
With a focus on academics and a love for playing baseball, DiLoreto showed up to campus his freshman year intrigued with the idea of going out for the Mountain Hawks baseball program, but with only a spot or two available, it was going to be tough for him to obtain such a highly-sought after spot.
Â
"When Tim came to try out for us, it was a difficult decision, literally coming down to roster spots," said head coach Sean Leary. "He was in that rare category where we encouraged him to come back out his sophomore year. A lot of times kids will try out and there's not really a spot for them and the gap is too big to catch up. If there was a few more spots, Tim probably makes the team as a freshman.
Â
"All that being said, he still had a difficult decision to make, whether he wanted to become just a student at Lehigh and maybe go out for the club team, or work on his own to come back out for another tryout. He made the decision to just grind it out and come back the next fall and once he did, we knew the kind of kid he was by showing that grit and determination."
Â
Most people would just give up trying to accomplish something after failing the first time, but DiLoreto knew that he wasn't that kind of person and knew he had to continue to pursue his dream, no matter the cost.
Â
"After I got cut at the end of the fall season my freshman year, a lot of the older guys were telling me they could have seen me on the team with them and have been a part of the program," he said. "So that's what kept my passion going for the sport and kept me rolling through the rest of the fall and through the spring semester.
Â
"That was the first time I didn't have baseball as a part of my everyday life in years. I was playing every fall, every winter and every winter for 10-plus years. I was honestly unsure of what I wanted to do for the rest of my freshman year and in the summer before my sophomore year I realized I didn't have anything to lose. If I don't make the team, I'm back to the life I had, I have a great education, but if I make the team, that's awesome because that's what I wanted to do all along."
Â
When DiLoreto had the opportunity to try back out for the Mountain Hawks, he jumped on the opportunity and the coaching staff was lucky to have a player like him join the program as a key depth addition.
Â
"First of all, he got physically stronger," Leary said. "He put some major time in and I think a big part of that was his maturity to grow into his body. Coming into his freshman tryout, he was a good catcher with a good arm and a pretty solid hitter and sophomore year, he was just better at everything. That was a major theme for him; by the time he was a senior, he became an above-average player at every skillset that you could have."
Â
Being a collegiate catcher has its advantages and disadvantages, and for many teams, it takes a pretty special individual and leader to insert themselves into a role like that. For DiLoreto, his mental game and a knack for making everyone around him more comfortable, was a much more important trait that his physical game and numbers on the stat-sheet.
Â
"There's a question you ask pitchers, 'Who do you like to throw to?" said Leary. "The pitchers fill out a questionnaire and even as sophomore when he was maybe getting a few innings here and there, Tim's name was on that list for a few guys. They liked the way he called a game, the way he received, and more than anything, the way he communicated with that pitcher to get to know him."
Â
For sophomore lefty Luke Rettig, who has already established himself as one of the premier pitchers in the Lehigh rotation, Tim was the guy he wanted to be throwing to in crucial situations.
Â
"Tim always had a very calm demeanor behind the plate, regardless of what was going on during the game," Rettig said. "I'm a very high energy pitcher so that always helped keep me in check.
Â
"He made me feel confident in my pitches and his pitch calling was elite. He never really said anything in particular, just his presence behind the plate was awesome. I could always trust him to make plays when we needed him to and there was never a moment when he would lose his cool."
Â
There are qualities DiLoreto's game that contributed to the important role he had on the team for his three seasons, and one big one was his team-first attitude, which was always put on display through his leadership on and off the diamond.
Â
"I think I developed that trait from my high school coach, but as a catcher, you need to have that kind of attitude," said DiLoreto. "You're not going to develop an effective relationship with your pitching staff if you're not team-first. If all you care about is yourself doing well, they aren't going to trust what you're putting down. They're not going to trust you as their catcher.
Â
"So I think that's the biggest thing, but it plays a role in the position that I played. Even in high school, I caught every bullpen session in the winter. We had other catchers but I made sure I caught every bullpen of every one of our guys. Before games, I didn't take BP because I wanted to make sure our pitchers were getting warmed up with me. I really think that set in here (at Lehigh) because when you have to work your tail off to make a team, you have to put your team first, especially as a walk-on."
Â
For Leary, he knew he had a special kid on his team when DiLoreto exemplified that exact quality, with the ability to do whatever it took to make everyone around him better before addressing his own game and focusing on his own individual agenda.
Â
"Usually when you make the team as a walk-on, you're going to catch bullpens, you're going to chase foul balls and you're going to do whatever you need to do because you're so happy to have that uniform on," Leary said. "But Tim didn't do it for that reason. He did it because he knew that if he caught an extra bullpen, he knew he could help the pitchers get better. His first year on the team, he just took his role and absolutely crushed it and was an awesome teammate.
Â
"The way he personified that is as he matured through the program, his senior year he had a shot to win the starting job with a pretty talented freshman in Adam Retzbach and I knew Adam was ready to start Game 1 because Tim helped prepare him. And that's not an easy thing to do. His mindset was always that if he, Adam and Joe (Yupp) worked together, the three of them could be the most prepared they could be. I honestly think Tim was as good at that as anyone I've ever coached."
Â
The mentality of being a good teammate and being a consummate leader in all facets of the game and life was a contagious one to have, as his team-first attitude was something that found its way to the rest of the program in one way or another.
Â
"Perhaps more impressive than his advanced skills on the diamond was his determination to be both a leader in the classroom and a role model for incoming freshmen," said fellow senior, shortstop Matt Hand. "Tim has been known to take younger players under his wing, enabling them to learn from his experiences and use this knowledge to better themselves and the program as a whole. It is his tireless work ethic and utmost perseverance that has made Tim a special member of this program."
Â
As mentioned before, Tim's role changed dramatically heading into his senior season in 2020, as he found himself a valuable member of the team with a chance to start more often than he ever did before.
Â
Unfortunately, like everyone else around the nation, the spring season was cut short due to the breakout of COVID-19, which not only ended DiLoreto's baseball season, but also ended his career without ever having a chance to play out the remainder of the campaign. For Tim, he has dealt with adversity throughout his entire career, always facing new challenges and always finding ways to overcome them. But this particular situation was devastating for not only baseball seniors, but for every senior student-athlete in every sport throughout the nation.
Â
His mountains and valleys of a baseball career, along with COVID-19, are examples in Tim's career that will continue to shape who he is as a person and who he wants to become in the future.
Â
"I think all of my experiences in these last three years, even the last eight or 10 years of playing baseball, have made me who I am today," said DiLoreto. "I don't know if I would be where I am today and have the job I have and be as successful as I am if it wasn't for baseball and the guys that surrounded me.
Â
"Baseball has ultimately taught me how to deal with failure. I've learned that if something just doesn't go your way, you just get back up and keep going. In the future in the workforce, there's going to be challenges. You're going to fail and miss out on opportunities; things are going to happen. It's all about persevering, keeping your head down and working harder."
Â
His passion for the game that he loves mixed with his inexhaustible leadership qualities and determination to accomplish anything that he could possibly put his mind to are just three of the many ways DiLoreto's legacy will be left for the current roster and future ballplayers of the Lehigh baseball program.
Â
"I often share stories of the young men in our program who have made a significant impact in many different areas," said Leary. "Tim DiLoreto will have a story that I will be telling. It's a matter of what you can do when you set your mind to it and have an ever-present team-first attitude. Tim is a player that will provide inspiration for a variety of future players that come through this program. That is a pretty amazing legacy to have."
Like Lehigh Baseball on Facebook, follow on Twitter and Instagram for continued updates on the Mountain Hawks.
Â
Â
When talking about the arc of a career, it can almost always be described of having a beginning, a middle and an end. The journey always unique but the destination remains the same.
Â
It hasn't been the easiest of roads for Lehigh baseball senior Tim DiLoreto, who has fought for literally everything he possibly wanted in his life. He never had a college baseball career handed to him like some players have experienced, but he scratched and clawed to get exactly where he wanted to go heading into his final season wearing the brown and white.
Â
Beginning as a player with the walk-on status attached to his name, DiLoreto transformed completely into a reliable presence off the bench in his early years to being a capable starter behind the plate as a senior. Moreover, DiLoreto's leadership has grown immensely from his sophomore year all the way to this past season.
Â
For the Harleysville native, DiLoreto's family connection to Lehigh has been a great influence in determining his college decision, as it was almost a guarantee he would end up on South Mountain.
Â
"I knew I was going to come here even before my senior season [in high school]," DiLoreto said. "My mom went to Lehigh and I visited multiple times prior to even thinking about playing baseball here and it's where I wanted to be from an educational and life standpoint for engineering.
Â
"For me, it wasn't that I just wanted to play baseball here; I just wanted to be here from the beginning."
Â
With a focus on academics and a love for playing baseball, DiLoreto showed up to campus his freshman year intrigued with the idea of going out for the Mountain Hawks baseball program, but with only a spot or two available, it was going to be tough for him to obtain such a highly-sought after spot.
Â
"When Tim came to try out for us, it was a difficult decision, literally coming down to roster spots," said head coach Sean Leary. "He was in that rare category where we encouraged him to come back out his sophomore year. A lot of times kids will try out and there's not really a spot for them and the gap is too big to catch up. If there was a few more spots, Tim probably makes the team as a freshman.
Â
"All that being said, he still had a difficult decision to make, whether he wanted to become just a student at Lehigh and maybe go out for the club team, or work on his own to come back out for another tryout. He made the decision to just grind it out and come back the next fall and once he did, we knew the kind of kid he was by showing that grit and determination."
Â
Most people would just give up trying to accomplish something after failing the first time, but DiLoreto knew that he wasn't that kind of person and knew he had to continue to pursue his dream, no matter the cost.
Â
"After I got cut at the end of the fall season my freshman year, a lot of the older guys were telling me they could have seen me on the team with them and have been a part of the program," he said. "So that's what kept my passion going for the sport and kept me rolling through the rest of the fall and through the spring semester.
Â
"That was the first time I didn't have baseball as a part of my everyday life in years. I was playing every fall, every winter and every winter for 10-plus years. I was honestly unsure of what I wanted to do for the rest of my freshman year and in the summer before my sophomore year I realized I didn't have anything to lose. If I don't make the team, I'm back to the life I had, I have a great education, but if I make the team, that's awesome because that's what I wanted to do all along."
Â
When DiLoreto had the opportunity to try back out for the Mountain Hawks, he jumped on the opportunity and the coaching staff was lucky to have a player like him join the program as a key depth addition.
Â
"First of all, he got physically stronger," Leary said. "He put some major time in and I think a big part of that was his maturity to grow into his body. Coming into his freshman tryout, he was a good catcher with a good arm and a pretty solid hitter and sophomore year, he was just better at everything. That was a major theme for him; by the time he was a senior, he became an above-average player at every skillset that you could have."
Â
Being a collegiate catcher has its advantages and disadvantages, and for many teams, it takes a pretty special individual and leader to insert themselves into a role like that. For DiLoreto, his mental game and a knack for making everyone around him more comfortable, was a much more important trait that his physical game and numbers on the stat-sheet.
Â
"There's a question you ask pitchers, 'Who do you like to throw to?" said Leary. "The pitchers fill out a questionnaire and even as sophomore when he was maybe getting a few innings here and there, Tim's name was on that list for a few guys. They liked the way he called a game, the way he received, and more than anything, the way he communicated with that pitcher to get to know him."
Â
For sophomore lefty Luke Rettig, who has already established himself as one of the premier pitchers in the Lehigh rotation, Tim was the guy he wanted to be throwing to in crucial situations.
Â
"Tim always had a very calm demeanor behind the plate, regardless of what was going on during the game," Rettig said. "I'm a very high energy pitcher so that always helped keep me in check.
Â
"He made me feel confident in my pitches and his pitch calling was elite. He never really said anything in particular, just his presence behind the plate was awesome. I could always trust him to make plays when we needed him to and there was never a moment when he would lose his cool."
Â
There are qualities DiLoreto's game that contributed to the important role he had on the team for his three seasons, and one big one was his team-first attitude, which was always put on display through his leadership on and off the diamond.
Â
"I think I developed that trait from my high school coach, but as a catcher, you need to have that kind of attitude," said DiLoreto. "You're not going to develop an effective relationship with your pitching staff if you're not team-first. If all you care about is yourself doing well, they aren't going to trust what you're putting down. They're not going to trust you as their catcher.
Â
"So I think that's the biggest thing, but it plays a role in the position that I played. Even in high school, I caught every bullpen session in the winter. We had other catchers but I made sure I caught every bullpen of every one of our guys. Before games, I didn't take BP because I wanted to make sure our pitchers were getting warmed up with me. I really think that set in here (at Lehigh) because when you have to work your tail off to make a team, you have to put your team first, especially as a walk-on."
Â
For Leary, he knew he had a special kid on his team when DiLoreto exemplified that exact quality, with the ability to do whatever it took to make everyone around him better before addressing his own game and focusing on his own individual agenda.
Â
"Usually when you make the team as a walk-on, you're going to catch bullpens, you're going to chase foul balls and you're going to do whatever you need to do because you're so happy to have that uniform on," Leary said. "But Tim didn't do it for that reason. He did it because he knew that if he caught an extra bullpen, he knew he could help the pitchers get better. His first year on the team, he just took his role and absolutely crushed it and was an awesome teammate.
Â
"The way he personified that is as he matured through the program, his senior year he had a shot to win the starting job with a pretty talented freshman in Adam Retzbach and I knew Adam was ready to start Game 1 because Tim helped prepare him. And that's not an easy thing to do. His mindset was always that if he, Adam and Joe (Yupp) worked together, the three of them could be the most prepared they could be. I honestly think Tim was as good at that as anyone I've ever coached."
Â
The mentality of being a good teammate and being a consummate leader in all facets of the game and life was a contagious one to have, as his team-first attitude was something that found its way to the rest of the program in one way or another.
Â
"Perhaps more impressive than his advanced skills on the diamond was his determination to be both a leader in the classroom and a role model for incoming freshmen," said fellow senior, shortstop Matt Hand. "Tim has been known to take younger players under his wing, enabling them to learn from his experiences and use this knowledge to better themselves and the program as a whole. It is his tireless work ethic and utmost perseverance that has made Tim a special member of this program."
Â
As mentioned before, Tim's role changed dramatically heading into his senior season in 2020, as he found himself a valuable member of the team with a chance to start more often than he ever did before.
Â
Unfortunately, like everyone else around the nation, the spring season was cut short due to the breakout of COVID-19, which not only ended DiLoreto's baseball season, but also ended his career without ever having a chance to play out the remainder of the campaign. For Tim, he has dealt with adversity throughout his entire career, always facing new challenges and always finding ways to overcome them. But this particular situation was devastating for not only baseball seniors, but for every senior student-athlete in every sport throughout the nation.
Â
His mountains and valleys of a baseball career, along with COVID-19, are examples in Tim's career that will continue to shape who he is as a person and who he wants to become in the future.
Â
"I think all of my experiences in these last three years, even the last eight or 10 years of playing baseball, have made me who I am today," said DiLoreto. "I don't know if I would be where I am today and have the job I have and be as successful as I am if it wasn't for baseball and the guys that surrounded me.
Â
"Baseball has ultimately taught me how to deal with failure. I've learned that if something just doesn't go your way, you just get back up and keep going. In the future in the workforce, there's going to be challenges. You're going to fail and miss out on opportunities; things are going to happen. It's all about persevering, keeping your head down and working harder."
Â
His passion for the game that he loves mixed with his inexhaustible leadership qualities and determination to accomplish anything that he could possibly put his mind to are just three of the many ways DiLoreto's legacy will be left for the current roster and future ballplayers of the Lehigh baseball program.
Â
"I often share stories of the young men in our program who have made a significant impact in many different areas," said Leary. "Tim DiLoreto will have a story that I will be telling. It's a matter of what you can do when you set your mind to it and have an ever-present team-first attitude. Tim is a player that will provide inspiration for a variety of future players that come through this program. That is a pretty amazing legacy to have."
Like Lehigh Baseball on Facebook, follow on Twitter and Instagram for continued updates on the Mountain Hawks.
Â
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