David and Will Bednar have made big steps up in their athletic careers over the past year.
Because of that, their father, Andy, stepped down.
This baseball-crazed family from Valencia couldn’t be happier.
It was about this time last year when Andy decided it was time to resign as Mars baseball coach after 23 years, 16 as head coach. It was an interesting development considering he helped build Mars into a strong program — it reached the WPIAL Class 5A final in 2017 and 2018 — and the Planets were expected to be strong again this season before the pandemic forced it to be canceled.
For Andy, resigning was the obvious move — he simply wanted to watch his children play ball. David is a pitcher in the Padres organization and made his major-league debut in September. Will pitches at Mississippi State and was a freshman All-American this spring. And there’s one other Bednar sibling excelling on the diamond, too. Danielle plays softball at Mars and just finished her sophomore year.
“I really just wanted a chance to get up and go see David and Will whenever I wanted. And almost more importantly than that, my daughter is a sophomore, and I wanted to see her, as well. Those three things made it a pretty easy decision,” Andy said.
Andy, along with wife Sue and daughter Danielle, were among about two dozen family and friends who made the trip to San Francisco Sept. 1 to watch David make his big-league debut. David pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning to nail down the Padres’ 8-4 win against the Giants.
It was a whirlwind 24 hours for David, who had never pitched above Double-A and a day earlier was in Texas playing for the Amarillo Sod Poodles.
“We had a meeting right before batting practice and our manager told me and another of our pitchers that we were going up, and everybody went crazy,” David said. “It was unbelievable. The whole day was pretty insane. I was on a flight out of Amarillo at 5 the next morning, I was in San Francisco by 10:30, it was a noon game, I pitched a couple of hours later, and a couple of hours later we had a flight to Arizona. I tried to soak it up a bit and be in the moment. It was unreal.”
Andy called the moment “surreal.” Will wasn’t able to make the game, but watched with friends at Mississippi State.
“I was kind of losing my mind. I was so pumped,” Will said. “To know how far he’s come and to see someone I look up to so much make it to that level was so awesome.”
David, 25, is a right-handed reliever who ascended to the majors quickly after being selected by the Padres in the 35th round of the 2016 draft out of Lafayette College. He did not allow a run in his first seven appearances with the Padres and ended up pitching 11 innings over 14 appearances.
Currently, David is in San Diego preparing for what he hopes to be a MLB season. He’s on the Padres’ 40-man roster.
Meanwhile, Will is back home with his parents. He’s lifting and on a throwing program after finishing his first year at Mississippi State. Will was just happy to be back on a baseball field this season. He pitched only two innings his senior season at Mars due to bicep tendinitis, this after a stellar junior season in which he went 8-0 and had a eye-popping 120 strikeouts in 66 innings. The injury not only cost him his season, but likely also played a big part in him not being drafted.
When there’s a will, there’s a way, and this Will had the willpower to bounce back in his COVID-19 shortened freshman season. Will gave up only three earned runs in 15⅓ innings of work while striking out 23 and holding a 1.76 ERA. There were more than 11,000 fans in attendance at Dudy Noble Field in Starkville when he made his college debut against Wright State.
“It was electric,” he said. “Just pitching there in general was something unlike anything I ever experienced.”
A hard-throwing right-hander, Will’s fastball was clocked as high as 97 mph this spring, two ticks faster than the 95 he would sometimes throw in high school. Will’s success didn’t go unnoticed, as he was picked to Collegiate Baseball’s freshman All-American team last week.
Dad, with more free time on his hands due to not coaching, made two trips to Mississippi State to see Will pitch.
“Him facing adversity and bouncing back from that, I couldn’t be more proud of him,” Andy said.
After having her high school season canceled, Danielle is hoping to play travel softball this summer for Team Pennsylvania. Danielle is talented, but almost inexplicably, isn’t a pitcher. Not only are her two brothers pitchers, but her dad was a star pitcher at Sto-Rox and later at Cornell University. Danielle plays shortstop.
“I guess the batting cage in the backyard is finally good for something,” David joked.
Andy, by the way, plans on coaching again one day, perhaps even helping Mars with workouts this fall. But as for being a head coach, don’t look for that happening anytime soon.
He’s making sure family comes first.
Brad Everett: beverett@post-gazette.com and Twitter: @BREAL412.
First Published: June 11, 2020, 10:15 a.m.
