At 32, Richmond Flying Squirrels pitcher Dylan Hecht defied the odds to reach pro baseball

RICHMOND, Va. — Dylan Hecht nearly missed his shot at professional baseball entirely — not because he lacked talent, but because of a medical condition that cost him nearly five years of his prime.

Now pitching for the Richmond Flying Squirrels, Hecht is living a dream he had all but given up on. If scouts hadn't spotted him throwing at a World Baseball Classic training camp in Arizona, he would still be running Hire Athletes, the company he founded to help players transition into traditional careers when their athletic days end.

"We didn't have time for internships or anything like that during the summer, so once we kind of stopped playing ... I think a lot of us were like, I don't really know what to do now, because my whole college has just been about baseball," Hecht said.

Hecht speaks from experience. He was good enough in high school to play at two West Coast schools, but a few games into his sophomore year of college, something went wrong.

"A few games into my sophomore year, I just kind of lost like control of feeling in my arm and kind of lost control of the ball," Hecht said.

He was eventually diagnosed with Thoracic Outlet Syndrome and had surgery to correct the problem. The condition stumped everyone from his coaches to his doctors, and by the time he recovered, he had lost nearly five years of his prime. He believed his shot at a professional career was over.

"Oh yeah, I was done," Hecht said. "I was fully retired and just playing beer league softball with friends, and the men's league."

Then came an unexpected turn. Several international teams that played in last year's World Baseball Classic held training camps in Arizona. Hecht was selected to pitch practice games against the German national team and a team from Asia. He knew he was throwing well — but those games had two things his men's league did not: radar guns and scouts.

"Went down there, and I think I struck outside, and I was like 96 to 98 MPH and they told me I was throwing that hard, and then I was kind of shocked, to be quite honest," Hecht said.

Former Squirrel Mark Minicozzi saw Hecht throw and contacted Giants director of minor league development Kyle Haines, a former Squirrels manager. Within days, Hecht signed his first professional contract and was on his way to Richmond.

"I don't think words could really describe the feeling ... I think shock might have been in it. Felt like a little bit of a, like a tornado, you know?" Hecht said.

His mother, Nancy Hecht, has been able to watch him finally realize his baseball dream in person at CarMax Park.

"No one saw this coming," she said. "No one, no one saw it coming."

She remembers the phone call that changed everything.

"We text frequently, but he called, and so that's unusual for him to call, and so, of course I picked it up, and he said, 'Mom, I'm going to the Giants,' and I think I was speechless for a minute, and lots of tears, you know, and I mean, it was certainly a pinch me moment," Nancy Hecht said.

Even telling family and friends took some explaining.

"I was like, I got signed by the Giants, and [they were] like, for work? I was like, no, for baseball, and they were like, are you playing? I was like, yeah. It was kind of a weird thing when I told family and friends," Hecht said.

Hecht went to his first-ever spring training in February and is now in his second season in Richmond. His mother said the road here was anything but easy.

"It was absolutely a very long journey, and I mean, baseball's been his entire life, and you know, every player fails greatly along this road, and there's a lot of bumps and ups and downs, and no matter what came across his path, he would always get up and brush himself off and go back at it," Nancy Hecht said.

For Hecht, there are no regrets.

"There's no regret, you know, because I think in the moment, I went for it, and I think that's the big thing. It's just give it all you got, and kind of see, see what happens. Just try to get better every day, and kind of hope for the best from there," Hecht said.

This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.