No thanks majors

Jerome Werniuk has lived every baseball player’s dream by being drafted by a Major League Baseball club, but had to make the difficult choice between playing professional baseball or going to school in the U.S.

In June, Werniuk’s name popped up on a computer screen in a friends room, when he was selected 604th overall by the Texas Rangers in the 2009 MLB First Year Player Draft. However, he was also offered a scholarship to LeMoyne College, a Jesuit University, in Syracuse, New York.

He had to make a decision to either live every boy’s dream or get an education.

In the end Werniuk opted to attend LeMoyne to study criminology and play for their team.

Werniuk said the decision was a difficult one and something that he didn’t take lightly.

“I look at myself in one or two years, in a short-term perspective and I say ‘Do I want to go to school?’ or ‘Is school right for me?’ ” pondered the right-handed pitcher before he made up his mind to go to school. “I also think about what kind of experience I will get in college and will the lessons I learn (there) as important as the real life lessons I will learn from playing professional baseball.

“Either way I am moving out of my house, so that’s going to be a big change,” he says. “In college you are treated as a young adult, when you are playing pro baseball, you are out there for yourself, you’re employed.

“Every time you step out there on the field you have to perform.”

Before the Neil McNeil graduate was drafted, he was already playing against professionals as part of Team Canada junior squad last fall in Florida and North Carolina.

“It was quite a big step,” he says. “When you are playing against players, who are at a higher level than you are, you try to play up to their level and that gives you confidence and the experience you need to keep getting better.

“It’s the best experience of my life. To be able to put your country’s name across your chest is one of the best feelings I have ever had,” he adds. “To play with a group of guys who are that talented and knowing that I have good defence behind me it’s a great feeling.”

When Werniuk first stepped onto the mound for Team Canada, he admitted he had a few butterflies in his stomach.

“I was pretty scared playing against guys, who some have been paid by their organization up to $1-million to sign with (them) and you are going to see a lot of those guys in the major leagues and on TV,” he says. “But baseball is baseball and once I got out on the mound it didn’t matter on who I was facing, I just wanted to pitch my game and whatever happens, happens.”

Werniuk hopes he can act as a role model for the younger kids.

“I am trying to present myself, whether I am practicing or playing, to be that role model for the younger kids I come into contact with,” he says.

Werniuk takes his new-found status very seriously and offers some advice to young baseball players.

“You don’t need all the talent in the world to be a good baseball player,” he says. “You just need to work hard and motivation.

“If you have those two things and you really want it and work hard at it then the sky is the limit.”