The Nine — Reggie Crawford: Fluid as Water

Throughout February, MLB, MiLB and the Sacramento River Cats will celebrate the contributions and achievements of the Black baseball community, past and present, during Black History Month.

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Frank Thomas, Mo Vaughn, Torii Hunter, and Barry Bonds. Outside of having Hall of Fame worthy careers, all four are just a small part of a historic list of Black players drafted in the first round of the MLB Draft. It’s a list that now also includes Reggie Crawford, the 30th pick in 2022 by the San Francisco Giants, and while it wasn’t always clear where his sports future lay, there were some signs early on.

During a visit in the summer with one of his uncles who lived in the Presidio area of San Francisco (for over 20 years), Crawford, a native of Frackville, Penn., took in a Giants game from then Pac Bell Park. After returning, Crawford gave his best impression of the athletes he had just seen, launching tennis balls from the driveway across the street to the neighbor’s yard.

“[His uncle] had a couple of those souvenir bats, and we were outside playing, and he was tossing tennis balls while I hit them across the street,” Crawford said. “It’s funny because I have pictures being in San Francisco and we’re in the driveway, hitting the house across the street. The neighbors said it was ok, he just better end up playing with the Giants one day.”

Crawford would eventually return to Frackville, a town an hour northwest of Philadelphia with a population of around 4,000 during his childhood. It was true “small town baseball” as Crawford coined it, and he took the traditional Little League pipeline. Though he did not watch a ton of baseball growing up (he was more of a LeBron James fan, someone he has long called his all-time favorite athlete), he had a few favorite players that came with obvious reasons why.

“Growing up it was Aroldis Chapman, Yoenis Cespedes, and Yasiel Puig,” Crawford said. “I never watched a ton of baseball, but those three guys—you had Chapman throwing a zillion [mph], at that point Puig was bat-flipping like crazy, it was cool and fun to watch those clips, and Cespedes is throwing guys out from the warning track. You have these outliers in their respective areas, it was fun to watch. I was typing those players into YouTube and sitting there watching their highlights, those were the big three for me.”

Little League soon turned into high school ball, but off the diamond Crawford could be found swimming laps in the pool. It did not take long for him to become one of the top swimmers in the state of Pennsylvania, improving his placement in the state championship meets in each of his freshman, sophomore, and junior years.

All culminated in a bit of history for Crawford as he became the Pennsylvania state record holder in the 50-yard freestyle, posting a time of 20.45 seconds in 2018.

"The goal was the Olympics," Crawford said in a 2024 article with MLB writer Matt Monagan. "The state record that I broke my junior year was set the previous year by a senior. He went to Penn State and he just swam in the past Olympics. So yeah, that was where we were setting our sights."

This was becoming a pivotal moment for Crawford, who clearly had a future in the pool, but seemed to be looking elsewhere. Not long after becoming a new state record holder, Crawford kept pushing towards baseball, working his way onto a travel ball team in the summer prior to his senior year. It was then, talking with his coach Paul McGloin of the East Coast Sand Hogs (based out of Scranton, Penn., hometown of fellow Giants pitcher Mason Black), that Crawford first believed he could see a future on the diamond.

“Where it first shifted for me was my first real summer of travel ball,” Crawford said. “At that point you look around and you got guys who’ve been committed for two or three years now, and I’m just getting into what a lot of others consider the true way of recruiting. Coach McGloin told me to list some schools, and A, B, and C list, and I’ll send out some emails with our schedule and hopefully some show up.”

Crawford had collected binder after binder packed full of information and scholarships for swimming but had exactly none for baseball at the time. Now with his homework assignment for the night, he had to put in the research. The best way? Crawford typed “Top 25 baseball schools” into a Google search, and from the 50 that popped up, he was able to create his three lists.

“My first tournament that year was in Massachusetts, and I think over the course of the weekend I had about 25 colleges there,” Crawford said. “I ended up getting a few offers, and ever since then there were 10-20 colleges every tournament. At the second tournament, there were even two or three pro scouts.

“I just went from two weeks ago setting my sights in the pool and now there’s pro baseball scouts coming out,” Crawford continued. “Again, you want to do that, but it just didn’t seem like it was in the cards for me. It was borderline out of the blue because I wasn’t setting my sights for that.”

Interest was easy, but picking the right fit could be hard, which made it even more special that Crawford would settle on the first school that offered him a baseball scholarship following his first tournament: the UConn Huskies.

The choice did not come without toil, as (maybe not) by surprise, Crawford was selected in the 37th round of the 2019 MLB Draft by the Kansas City Royals. In the end, the power (both hitting and throwing) lefty decided to ship off to Mansfield, Conn. where he took the field at Elliot Ballpark for the Huskies.

As they say, the rest is history, as Crawford became one of the bigger names in college following a sophomore season in which he smashed 13 homers and drove in 62 runs. Both of those marks led the Big East conference, and his 62 RBI matched a number not seen in a decade since George Springer did so in 2010. All of that led the two-way phenom Crawford to be selected by the Giants at the end of the first round in 2022, undoubtedly putting a smile on the faces of his uncle’s former neighbors in the Presidio.

Though he has yet to make his MLB debut, the fact it is even a possibility seemed out of reach when he was younger. One of the biggest obstacles Crawford notes for getting young kids into baseball is the cost of the sport, especially for younger Black ballplayers.

“I automatically just got to the expenses that baseball brings, it’s not a cheap sport to play,” Crawford said. “I think that is a big component for Black ballplayers and why there’s very little numbers compared to a lot of other groups.”

In fact, according to Matt Monagan’s piece for MLB, one of the primary reasons that Crawford had even entered the pool was due to the cost, as it was much cheaper to get into than baseball.

Representation has also been big for Crawford, but though he noted there was only around five Black students in his high school, he developed a mentality to not let things outside of his control affect his mindset.

“Because of where I grew up, it’s not ever something that I think about,” Crawford said. “But that’s real for a lot of guys, that’s stuff you hear. Growing up, anywhere that I was there were very few who ‘looked like me,’ but that’s not how I approached it.

“I’ve had one experience, and I would say I’m lucky to have only had one, to where I’ve heard a comment from the stands that wasn’t very pleasant,” Crawford continued. “That’s the harsh reality sometimes that it’s very unfortunate. I’m someone that I feel like I can handle that stuff very well, and at the end of the day, it’s just noise.”

Dealing with that noise does not mean representation is any less important, and it is something that Crawford believes is improving in the sport. In fact, during Crawford’s 2022 draft class, four of the first five picks were Black ballplayers.

“All of them are going to pan out to be very, very good ballplayers,” Crawford said. “It’s great because you do need that representation, and I know them all, they’re all really good dudes and that’s the big thing for me. They’re good at baseball, but they’re solid guys, and I think that goes even further.

“It’s trending in the right direction, and I think as long as the community continues to put energy in the right direction, I think that will just continue,” Crawford said. “Having guys like a Mookie [Betts] and CC [Sabathia] that speak up and are those figures, it definitely helps for a lot of guys.”

Reflecting back upon other names to also be drafted in the first round, names such as Hunter, Vaughn, Bonds, and Thomas, the significance of that achievement is not lost on Crawford.

“It means a lot [to be on the list of Black players drafted in the first round], it’s the stuff you work for, it’s why you do what you do every day to put yourself in the best position for success,” Crawford said. “It’s an unbelievable feeling knowing you’re a part of that group, but at the same time there’s a lot of work to be done.”

According to Crawford, that representation comes with responsibility. Not just of those in MLB, but of the communities as a whole.

“I think a lot of it comes down to the guys doing it now and giving back to the community as a whole, as I would not be where I am right now without the many people that contributed whether it was time, money, I would not be here,” Crawford said. “That goes for many, many people, and there’s many that miss out on opportunities because that may be lacking. I think guys continuing to give back, whether financially or with knowledge, and being different vessels for these people because it is tough.

“For inner city kids, you can’t just walk to a baseball field, and I’ve seen videos of fields that are multipurpose, and what can you do there?,” Crawford continued. “For Sand Hogs tournaments I would travel with the coach nine times out of 10, and we would drive into the city to pick kids up to take them to tournaments. It has to be an effort of many to come together to make it happen.”

That effort is part of the legacy that Crawford hopes to leave on the game.

“I want to be one of the greats, one of the guys a part of that list, not just first rounders but an all-time list,” Crawford said. “But more importantly, a big thing for me that I really enjoy, [is helping] kids that reach out on social media. Growing up, you look at these peoples as if they’re superheroes, and not real people.

“But at the end of the day they are, they’re just real people,” Crawford continued. “The earlier people realize and recognize that, it makes it to where it doesn’t just feel like this dream. Shortening the distance between a player and a fan goes a long way, and being able to answer questions or give insight, if that can help somebody just a little bit more, and provide that little bit extra of motivation, that’s gone a long way for me. I want to be known as a guy that’s not just this figure, a person who happens to be good at what they do, but can be this vessel for whatever they need.”