Growing up, all Chase Van Dyk  wanted to do was play baseball.

As soon as he could walk, he  yearned to be in the backyard hit ting or tossing with his dad, Brett  Van Dyk. As Brett Van Dyk coached his son through Little League, he continuously preached the importance of fun in baseball. 

“I told him, ‘keep playing while you’re having fun,’” Brett Van Dyk said. “‘If it’s not fun, then it’s  something to consider not doing anymore.’ And he still enjoys the sport.” 

Even when Chase Van Dyk wasn’t on the diamond, baseball served as  the sun he orbited around. Whether he sifted through baseball cards  after school, played Backyard Baseball at home and on road trips or watched games on TV, Chase Van Dyk wanted to do it all.  

“I’d rather play a game for my  job than sit at a desk or do math or  any other sort of activity,” Chase  Van Dyk said. “It was always something to do and something I enjoyed, so I think a passion started at a young age and never really died.” 

A simple childhood dream has brought him to three colleges in three years, left him in a burning  car and forced him into months of arduous rehab. But in Chase  Van Dyk’s estimation, the chance to suit up for Missouri’s baseball team and pitch at the Division I  level next spring made that journey worthwhile.  

“It’s just a sacred game that has  a lot of meaning and history, and  it’s just a privilege to be a part of  that,” Chase Van Dyk said. 

***

Scouts and coaches knew that  Chase Van Dyk could play at the  Division I level years before he committed to the Tigers.  

The Frisco, Texas, southpaw joined a select team when he  turned 11, and immediately flourished. Chase Van Dyk’s skills progressed to the point where he finished freshman year of high school on the varsity roster with a fastball that could break 90 mph. 

Scouts from SEC and Big 12  schools took notice that summer, but Chase Van Dyk knew right off  the bat he wanted to play at Oklahoma. As a sophomore, two years  before he could officially sign with  a college, Chase Van Dyk commit ted to the Sooners. 

Why Oklahoma? Because of the  relationship he built with head  coach Skip Johnson and the short drive for his parents from Frisco up to Norman, Oklahoma.  

But what Chase Van Dyk initially saw as a “perfect formula for success” had its flaws. 

First, he needed to wait for play ing time. Johnson’s pitching staff  didn’t have many innings to spare, so the available options were limited bullpen innings or a redshirt  year. 

Chase Van Dyk didn’t like either of those options. 

“You don’t want to go to a four year school and sit on the bench,”  said Mike Bacsik Sr., Chase Van  Dyk’s high school pitching coach  and a former MLB pitcher. “You can’t practice pitching in a game  unless you pitch in a game.”

In the final week of his first semester at Oklahoma, Chase decided to continue his baseball career at the junior college level, some thing that he and his parents  wished they had evaluated sooner. 

“If I could have done it again, I  probably wouldn’t have let him  commit so early,” Lara Van Dyk,  Chase’s mom, said. 

***

There’s not much that’s special about Denison, Texas. The town inhabited by 25,529 people isn’t a  bustling hub of commerce by any  stretch of the imagination. There’s  little debate when Chase Van Dyk’s  primary forms of entertainment were watching ducks at the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge and  seesawing on gigantic oil rigs.

The town 75 miles north of Dallas is interesting to the extent that it is  the birthplace of former president  Dwight Eisenhower and Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the pilot who landed a plane in the Hudson River. But aside from fun facts, there isn’t much flair for the town that  sits less than five miles away from the Oklahoma border.  

The tiny Texas town contains  Grayson College, the perfect place  for Chase Van Dyk to improve  on the diamond — a no-frills,  all-baseball town that won three  National Junior College Athletic  Association Baseball World Series titles since 1999. 

“It’s not impressive by any  means,” Chase Van Dyk said. “But there’s some sort of magic there  that is kind of unexplainable as far as the athletic side.” 

The magic at Grayson stemmed  from the baseball-centric atmosphere of the junior college lev el that Chase Van Dyk craved.  Alongside the method of coach  Dusty Hart, who understands that Grayson is just a stop onto bigger and better things, Chase Van Dyk finally found his “perfect formula  for success.”  

Hart worked with his team in a  hands-off, laid-back approach that fit the incoming freshman like a well-worn baseball mitt. Chase Van Dyk and his team didn’t need  any extra motivation to play their best with professional careers at stake every time they stepped on the diamond.

Grayson’s head honcho didn’t interfere with player routines for a  regimented, one-size-fits-all approach. So long as the team racked  up wins, the players were free to  work within their own individualized routines. 

Chase Van Dyk took advantage of this freedom by working with  Bascik closer to home in Arlington,  Texas, when he needed pitching  advice. He also had free reign to do whatever he needed to pitch his best, even if some considered his methods unorthodox. 

Fifteen minutes before Chase Van  Dyk took the mound for the first time in a Grayson uniform, he sat at the end of the dugout munching on a hot dog.  

Hart, perplexed that his starter wasn’t warming up, inquired why  he wasn’t throwing around. 

“Dusty, I can’t pitch on an empty stomach,” Chase Van Dyk told his coach. 

“Alright, I can’t argue with that,” a chuckling Hart said. “Make sure when you’re on the mound to do your thing.” 

The move to Grayson and the  atmosphere that permitted pregame hot dog consumption in the  dugout paid off. Chase Van Dyk appeared in eight contests, start ing one of them and finishing the year with a perfect 3-0 record. In just 33.2 innings pitched, he struck out 47 batters. 

***

Chase Van Dyk’s hopes of further developing into a pro-caliber player and hearing his name announced in the 2020 MLB First Year Player Draft hit a slight bump in the road when COVID-19 canceled the season. 

He pitched in three outings with one start before the NJCAA shut  down the season mid-March.  Grayson ended its season with  a 16-3 record to land the No. 11 ranking in the NJCAA polls, with a  legitimate chance to make a run in the NJCAA World Series that summer. 

“That one’s gonna stick with me forever, because we had as good a club as we’ve ever had and Chase would have been a big part of  that,” Hart said. 

More disappointing news came  just weeks later: On March 26, the MLB significantly scaled back its  draft in June, from 40 rounds the year prior, to just five which resulted in 160 selections instead of over 1,200 in 2019. 

Hart believed that, had the draft been completed in full, Chase Van Dyk would have been selected for a decent position and signed with whatever team offered him a spot.

“I think somebody would have drafted him anywhere from the 10th round to the 20th round,” Hart said. 

March 2020 saw so many things  slip out of Chase Van Dyk’s grasp  that he couldn’t control. But on  March 24, as he and two friends drove down Texas State Highway  289 back to Grayson to grab their  belongings from the clubhouse and say their final goodbyes, life itself nearly slipped away. 

* “The Chase Chronicles” is a three-part story. Part Two will arrive soon.* 

Edited by Kyle Pinnell | kpinnell@themaneater.com