What Adam Plutko remembers the most about his experience pitching in Cuba over the summer isn’t necessarily what happened while he was on the mound. The UCLA pitcher, who played his summer ball internationally for Team USA, says that there was one thing that stuck with him after games at Havana’s Latin American Stadium – the ringing in his ears.
“They had these horns and they have these horns going the whole entire game,” Plutko said. “Your ears, you go home and you couldn’t hear.”
Plutko, as well as UCLA reliever David Berg, were two of a select few to pitch internationally for the USA Collegiate National Team. The team played in three events, one at the national training complex in Cary, N.C., and two overseas in Cuba and the Netherlands.
In Team USA’s final event of the international tour, Plutko and Berg helped the U.S. to a third-place finish in the Honkbal-Haarlem Baseball Week in the Netherlands. Both turned in impressive performances during their national team tenure, leading Baseball America to rank Plutko the No. 15 overall prospect on the team and ranking Berg as No. 20.
Plutko started three games, striking out 12 while earning a 2.63 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP. Berg had a 3.72 ERA in 9.2 innings pitched, and did not allow a run in 5.1 innings in the Haarlem tournament.
The experience was beneficial in that the two were not pitching against top collegiate prospects, the team was playing against grown men in baseball-mad countries like Cuba and Japan.
While the U.S. fielded a collegiate national team last summer, many of the teams faced play at the professional level and at a high one internationally. The Chinese Taipei team, which the U.S. blanked 2-0 in pool play to earn an appearance in the medal rounds of the Honkbal-Haarlem tournament, is currently ranked fifth in the International Baseball Federation rankings.
Cuba is still considered an amateur team as there are no professional leagues in the country, but the Cubans have been known to load its roster with former MLB players and 35-year old veterans of a system that produces some of the world’s best baseball talent. Cuba is currently ranked No. 2 in the world.
Facing the unique talent of an international team provided an equally-unique challenge for Team USA. Instead of pitching to a talented 18-year-old that still might have holes in his swing, Plutko found himself retooling his mental approach to face veteran sluggers.
“It really got me ready to face some big-time hitters,” Plutko said. “All of the sudden you have this 28-year-old who has power and you’re up two runs and you’ve got a guy on base, that’s the thought that goes into your head. That may not necessarily happen in college, you’re facing an eight-hole hitter that might not have power. But now when that the guy steps up to the plate, you think a little bit differently.”
Culturally, the experience was also significant. A high-demand placed on student-athletes does not always allow for experiences such as studying abroad. Plutko saw it as a chance to study baseball abroad.
“In a communist country, being American it was pretty neat,” Plutko said. “Facing these 25-35-year-old men in a country that loves baseball, we’d average 15,000 people a night. It was really cool and it was really special.”
Competition aside, the team bonding experience was unlike any other.
In one particular game in Haarlem, a lengthy rain delay stopped play for more than an hour. Rather than sit in the clubhouse and hold Kangaroo Court, Team USA took it upon itself to entertain the crowd of 3,500 in attendance at Pim Mulier Stadium.
The team held a mock wedding, jousting match, sumo wrestling bout, led the crowd in “YMCA” and Berg performed as “upside-down-man”.
Team USA head coach Dave Serrano, Tennessee’s skipper, felt that the international edition of Rain Delay Theater showed how close the team had become, at the time saying, "We have a great group of guys who like to have fun and have really bonded together over the last three-and-a-half weeks. It's sad that our time together is coming to an end, but we hope to end it with a memory that we will all share forever."
Plutko, who did not earn a decision in his first start against Minnesota in No. 12 UCLA’s season-opener last Friday, is currently touted as one of the top arms in collegiate baseball now in his junior season. A Golden Spikes Award candidate and preseason All-American, Plutko feels that his time with Team USA not only made him better on the field but also provided valuable experiences off the field.
“It was unbelievable,” Plutko said. “Experiences I’ll never forget with guys that we were together every day and I still talk to them today so it was just absolutely unbelievable, I could never take it back.”
