Mitch Longo has proven to be a hidden gem on and off the field for Ohio.
Coach Rob Smith found his needle in a haystack when he was able to recruit the freshman centerfielder to come to play for the Bobcats.
Longo, a native of Mayfield, leads the Bobcats in every offensive statistical category, but has been through a tough time after his mother passed away when he was younger.
“It changed the way I look at things,” he said. “You can’t take anything for granted … that’s always in the back of my mind and I use it as motivation to keep me in check.”
Smith said that the emotion that the freshman displays on the field translates well to becoming a successful player, even if it gets the best of him sometimes.
“Mitch is a player who plays the game like it’s the last game he’s ever going to get to play,” Smith said. “He lives and dies with every at-bat that he takes … because of that, sometimes that emotion does get the best of him.”
“We’ve worked a lot with him on teaching him not to come down when he plays, but just to manage the failures that he inevitably will have as a baseball player.”
Longo’s roommate and teammate Ty Black, a freshman infielder, says Longo is the greatest person to be around.
“As a person, (Mitch) is one of the best friends I’ve ever had in my life,” Black said. “He’s just as passionate about being your friend as he is about being a baseball player. His best trait is how much he truly does care about people. To him, everything else in life is just important as baseball.”
At an early age Longo looked up to Ken Griffey Jr., but as he matured, he took the mental aspect of the game into account after reading Josh Hamilton’s book, Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back.
“(Reading his book) gives you a whole different perspective of how influential the game of baseball is, how it can change your life and not to take a day for granted,” Longo said.
Longo said he grew up in a sports household, as he grew up alongside an uncle who graduated from Ohio University as a two-sport athlete in cross country and swimming. His older brother, Lee, is a senior infielder for Eastern Michigan’s baseball team.
“We all played sports growing up,” he said. “I knew from the first game in baseball — with my dad coaching me — that baseball was the sport that I wanted to pursue and the one that I wanted to play for, it was my dream.”
Longo pursued that dream to become a college baseball player, as he topped all Cleveland-area players with a .540 batting average during his junior year and became the fourth-best position player in the state of Ohio following his senior season, according to PrepBaseballReport.com. That’s when he got looks from the likes of Kent State, Ohio State and Akron.
But Longo committed to Ohio because he loved the campus, coaching staff and the team that the Bobcats had put together.
Smith says it took a little bit of luck with their circumstances at the time that they recruited Longo.
“We got lucky in some regards,” Smith said. “I got the job in the middle of June … so to have a player of that caliber still available at that time of the year, we were very fortunate.
“We made a very hard push to get him on campus, which we did, then I made a home visit with him, then it wasn’t too long after that we were able to get his commitment.”
Longo has started every game he’s played this season and has accumulated a team-best .364 batting average, along with 13 runs and 16 RBIs and 13 walks. He has also hit two of Ohio’s five home runs.
He didn’t know that he would be this successful this early in his collegiate career, but he said that he brings the same mindset to the field every day, no matter how he is playing.
“I go out every day and try to play the way I know how,” Longo said. “I use the same integrity that I would every day and just try to make the team better.”
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