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Former Baylor baseball star glad wait is over for summer teams

Staff photo / Baylor's Gehrig Ebel dives for the bag as Brentwood Academy third baseman Ben Pearce awaits the throw during a game at Baylor on April 19, 2019. Ebel, whose 2020 senior season with the Red Raiders was wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic canceling the TSSAA's spring sports schedule, is excited to return to the diamond with his eXposure Baseball select team.
Staff photo / Baylor's Gehrig Ebel dives for the bag as Brentwood Academy third baseman Ben Pearce awaits the throw during a game at Baylor on April 19, 2019. Ebel, whose 2020 senior season with the Red Raiders was wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic canceling the TSSAA's spring sports schedule, is excited to return to the diamond with his eXposure Baseball select team. Staff photo / Baylor's Gehrig Ebel dives for the bag as Brentwood Academy third baseman Ben Pearce awaits the throw during a game at Baylor on April 19, 2019. Ebel, whose 2020 senior season with the Red Raiders was wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic canceling the TSSAA's spring sports schedule, is excited to return to the diamond with his eXposure Baseball select team.

By Lindsey Young 5 min read

While millionaire Major League Baseball players and billionaire team owners squabble over the sport’s professional future, Gehrig Ebel is just happy to hear the crack of a bat – especially his own bat.

The recent Baylor School graduate and future Virginia Tech Hokie is about to play baseball for the first time in months, doing so in an Atlanta-area tournament as a member of the eXposure Baseball 18-under team. Having had his senior season with the Red Raiders canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ebel was more than ready to hit the field and compete.

“I miss it a lot. For the most part, I didn’t believe we were going to be able to do it,” said Ebel, who was a key player on the Baylor teams that won back-to-back TSSSA Division II-AA state championships the past two years. “At the beginning of May, I thought there was no way we would play. I’ve been pretty bored. I can’t wait to hang out with the team, them having your back and you having theirs and just competing together.”

Brandon Turner, the founder of eXposure Baseball, has teams ranging in age groups from 8U to 18U and has, since the Chattanooga-based organization launched in 2014, sent some 300 players on to the next level. Thirty-five more, including Ebel and former Baylor teammate Colin Ahearn, who is bound for Tennessee, will join those ranks this year.

Turner said those class of 2020 signees will use the 40 to 50 games they play this summer to knock the rust off and hopefully hit the ground running in what is expected to be a very competitive 2021 college season.