BASEBALL: Port Angeles product Cole Uvila the subject of documentary podcast

The baseball odyssey of Texas Rangers minor-leaguer Cole Uvila, a 2012 Port Angeles High School graduate and former Roughrider and Wilder Baseball player, is chronicled in a multi-episode documentary podcast series being released today.

In Season 2 of the Razed Sports podcast, host Bob Harkins follows the journey of Uvila, a 25-year-old right-handed relief pitcher coming off Tommy John surgery, as he tries to beat the odds and work his way up through the Texas Rangers’ minor league system.

Episodes are available at RazedSports.com, on YouTube at tinyurl.com/PDN-RazedSports and can be downloaded through podcast mediums such as Apple Podcast and Google Podcast.

Listeners will hear the story unfold closer to real time than you usually experience in a documentary, as episodes will post just weeks after the action happens on the field.

Ensuing installments will come out through the fall. Uvila said he expects at least 10 episodes to be released and possibly up to 12.

Razed Sports is also on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and YouTube.

I had written a sports brief on Uvila’s success at Georgia Gwinnett College, so I was aware of his college career.

The day he was drafted by the Rangers I saw a post congratulating him on the Wilder Baseball Club Facebook page. Obviously, I had a story to write, but I really had no idea what a journey he’d taken from Civic Field.

Uvila quickly wrote back to me and said he had been waiting to have his story told in the Peninsula Daily News.

There were a few reasons why.

The 6-foot-4-inch Uvila let loose in a 90-minute phone interview, recounting his last-chance rise from an 85-mile per hour pitcher at Pierce College all the way to being drafted by a major league ballclub.

The journey includes an NCAA Division I scholarship to Georgia State and quick success that soon had major league scouts sniffing around. But that brief period was unceremoniously interrupted — when Uvila suffered a tear of his ulnar collateral ligament in his right-arm while pitching a bullpen training session in front of a Texas Rangers’ area scout.

Uvila underwent Tommy John surgery and didn’t throw a baseball for 18 months, instead rehabbing and training with Kent’s revolutionary Driveline Baseball training facility before moving on to Gwinnett. While there he fared well and was taken with the 1,199th pick of the 2018 MLB Draft, scoring the big bucks, a $1,000 signing bonus in the process.

Uvila had a solid rookie season with Class A-short season Spokane in 2018. He spent two weeks with Class A Hickory coming out of spring training and has been with the high-A Down East Wood Ducks, the team with the best record in minor league baseball, since mid-April.

Harkins wrote to me on Twitter and said he read the articles I wrote on Uvila from the day he was drafted in June 2018 through Uvila’s 2018 season with short-season Spokane, and realizing the depth of Uvila’s backstory, knew he had his subject.

“I really wanted to show how difficult life is in the minors and I wanted to do it through the eyes of someone who most people don’t expect to make it,” Harkins said. “When I started researching Cole’s background, I knew I had to tell his story. He’s not your typical long shot, and there are plenty of twists and turns ahead.”

I was proud to get that note from Harkins. It’s easily the best story I wrote in 2018.

And Uvila is doing great this season, shaking off some initial struggles against the more advanced hitters he soon encountered by ditching his previous off-speed pitch, a slider, for a curve and ditching his windup to pitch exclusively from the stretch.

The Rangers think so too, picking him last week as one of seven top team prospects to play in the upcoming Arizona Fall League — a prestigious MLB showcase that counts such alumni as current MLBer’s Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge and Mitch Haniger.

I spoke with Cole about the podcast and his season soon after he learned he had been picked to represent Texas in the Arizona Fall League.

“[Harkins] read your article from when I got drafted, stumbled across it when he was doing research and messaged me on Facebook in May,” Uvila said.

The Seattle-based Harkins and Uvila have connected multiple times since then.

“We’re probably talking two or three times a month for about an hour at a time,” Uvila said. “He’s also talked to my fiance, my dad, the Rangers’ area scout and some folks who work at Driveline.”

Initially, Uvila was unsure if he wanted to participate.

“It was something I was on the fence about doing,” he said. “I thought it might be a waste of my time if nothing comes of it, spending that much time talking to somebody that I have never met.”

Harkins, a writer, editor and producer with more than 20 years’ experience in sports journalism, including 13 years at NBCSports.com, launched the Razed Sports podcast in 2018, with Season 1 telling a series of stories around the brain injury crisis facing football.

Uvila was sent a portion of the first episode of Season 2 and he quickly changed his mind.

“He sent me the first 35 minutes of the first episode and it’s all about growing up in PA. He talks with my dad, discusses [the loss of] my mom and interviews my fiance. Once I was able to see what he’s putting forth I realized what a gift this is and I’m super grateful and excited to listen to it.”

Uvila, who’s set to get married to Kayla Andrus on Oct. 30, 2021, understood this podcast series isn’t just about him.

At some point, hopefully long after Uvila has achieved that other childhood dream of pitching in the big leagues, he’ll be able to “dust off” the digital keepsake and share the memories of his time in the minors with his future family members.

Uvila has plenty of supporters as the journey continues.

“As far as like ambition and drive, I’ll never bet against the kid to do anything,” said Derrick Tucker, the scout who pushed the Rangers to draft him.“And if he ever pitched a day in the big leagues it would not shock me one bit.”