Brendan McGinn was one of the most successful mid-week starters the Huskies had this year.

McGinn's Desire For Sport Keeps Him Going

By: Matt Flachsenhaar

Posted: 5/6/07

It is both ironic and inconvenient how sometimes even the brightest of days can quickly have a series of dark and ominous clouds roll in on it.
One nagging injury can lead to another serious one for many baseball pitchers.
For the former winner of the Hartford Courant's 'Best of the Best' award for pitching in high school, Brendan McGinn had what looked like the most promising of careers in front of him. His senior season in high school saw him go 11-1 with a 0.79 ERA and 142 strikeouts. After a rocky freshman season at UConn, McGinn found himself in the midst of a solid sophomore effort and was beginning to get adjusted to baseball at the collegiate level when the injury bugs began to bite.
Multiple arm injures shut McGinn down and forced him to redshirt his junior year.
"Rehabbing was real tough. The whole time I'm doing it, I'm thinking 'I'm not even guaranteed to be back pitching,'" McGinn said. "It took a lot to get on the mound and forget the pain and just throw strikes."
Over work may have been the cause of the pain for McGinn. He was relied upon heavily in high school and spent two seasons playing summer baseball in the North Woods league in Minnesota. All those pitches added up in a very negative equation for McGinn.
"He always wants the ball and never says no with it," said head coach Jim Penders.
The mid-week starter role is not the most hallowed in all of college baseball, as teams typically throw their top three guys in the weekend conference match-ups. Penders has admitted that McGinn is more than deserving of a spot in the weekend rotation, but he has bounced back his senior year to thrive in the mid-week role.
Asking someone with such a decorated career coming into college to accept the possibility that in his senior season he may not be one of the top three starters on the team would be tough for most. However, McGinn is still way ahead of where many thought he would currently be.
"If he went to a doctor right now they would probably say, 'Hey, you shouldn't be pitching,'" Penders said. "But this is probably his last go around and he wants to give it everything he's got. I haven't had enough to smile about this year, but watching him has been one of the real bright sides of the season."
Any coach's face would light up with the numbers McGinn has this year. He is the owner of a 5-1 record that compliments his 2.60 ERA nicely - both tops on the Huskies.
"The kid is ridiculous," said sophomore pitcher Rich Sirois. "His arm has been hurting him for a couple years but he wouldn't let anybody know that. I don't know if he's broken 85 [mph] this year, but he's the typical crafty senior veteran lefty and he's found ways to get guys out."
But before the comeback senior year, before the injuries, before the "Best of the Best" award and before baseball, came McGinn's father.
"He was really helpful, he was my coach through little league," said McGinn. "He taught me the basics of the game, what I needed to know and was basically the reason I started playing."
He is also the reason McGinn started working hard. As a fifth-year player, McGinn knows what to take from the program and get the results he wants. He has been in the system longer than Penders has been head coach and is the only player that can claim that.
Sixth-semester business major Ryan Marcoux worked out with the team this fall and got to know McGinn well in the semester they played together.
"He's been here the longest and knows exactly what it takes to be good," Marcoux said. "His numbers show how good he is and he does what he needs to do to win."
"In a long season; sometimes it's hard to stay on everybody's good side," Marcoux said. "But McGinn is one of those guys everyone likes; no one's ever had any problem with him."
Still, with all the ability and the intangibles, McGinn can't always be perfect. Marcoux reminisces about the one time he stepped into the box against McGinn.
"I faced McGinn once and I hit a ball about 420 feet off him," he said.
Many opponents this year wish they could claim the same feat.
The rehab center and the weight room may be places where ability is developed or recaptured, but the locker room is the place where a team is formed and McGinn excels in this area more than any other aspect of baseball.
Since the dreams of donning a major league uniform or making a living playing baseball seemed to have skipped over McGinn's spot in line, the economics major must now prepare himself to join the work force after graduation. But this may not be as hard as advertised.
"He's a really smart individual, and he's also very personable," Sirois said. "People gravitate towards him and there's nobody on this campus that knows him and doesn't like him."
Sirois and the rest of his teammates know where McGinn's been, and know where he is. As far as where he's going? Only McGinn knows that.