RADNOR >> Radnor’s baseball season was going nowhere fast when Andrew Austen volunteered to fill a gaping void.
After an 0-5 start, with a can’t-lose game against fellow strugglers Lower Merion looming April 18, coach Mark Jordan’s pitching staff needed a spark. The team was missing its best player, outfielder Connor Wilson, for whom Austen had been deputizing in center field. An injury to pitcher Charlie Connolly left the thin and youthful staff bereft of options.
Even though Austen hadn’t pitched, scholastically or in legion, since he was a sophomore, he decided to step up.
“Right away, we kind of were a little short and needed some help, and I just wanted to help wherever I could, whether that was center field or the mound,” Austen said. “So I just said to coach, ‘If you need me out there, I’m ready.’ He gave me my chance, and he’s kept giving me games.”
As the postseason dawns this week, that moment is the pivot on which Radnor’s fortunes turned. The Raiders (9-10) open the District One Class AAA tournament Tuesday at Chichester, an honor that Austen has played an outsized role in securing.
All those aspects of Radnor’s narrative arc skirt the first thing most people notice about Austen: He’s doing it all with one hand.
Austen was born with only a few inches of his right forearm, no wrist and no hand, a physical limitation that’s easily forgotten when you see Austen starting on the varsity baseball team for the last three seasons or contributing for Radnor’s soccer team.
He’s developed the ability to perform most of his daily tasks without a prosthetic, and that includes pitching. For batting, he utilizes a carbon-fiber device that slips over a cloth sleeve on his right arm and serves as the nominal “bottom hand” on his left-handed stroke. The bat handle clips into the round eyelet of a clamp, and Austen releases the entire device from his arm when he bolts from the box.
Austen is among Radnor’s leaders with a .333 average and 15 stolen bases, the All-Central second teamer who’s risen from a nine-hole hitter and defense-first outfielder to a top-of-the-order table-setter.
Pitching isn’t a new addition to Austen’s arsenal. He threw regularly as a middle-schooler, before the injury his sophomore year. This season, he’s returned with a 4-0 record and a 1.22 ERA, surrendering just five earned runs in 28.2 innings.
Austen’s motion required more work than most to perfect. As a kid, Austen met Jim Abbott, the one-handed MLB pitcher, at a book signing. Though they didn’t talk pitching, they talked about living without an appendage and what a life of adapting meant. Austen has always drawn inspiration from Abbott, most directly in choreographing a pitching motion through old highlight tapes and photos.
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