Mars native Andy Bednar is a proud father today.
His older son, David is having a good year pitching for his hometown Pittsburgh Pirates and now his younger son, Will is a College World Series Champion.
Will held Vanderbilt hitless in his six innings of work, giving Mississippi State its first National Championship in team history. He was also named the MVP of the tournament.
Bednar also out pitched, highly touted Vanderbilt pitcher Kumar Rocker, who had never lost in a College World Series game to that point.
Andy tells The Fan Morning Show other than a 14-hour drive ahead of him from Omaha, NE everything is great.
He says Will told him he could’ve gone longer than six innings and was feeling pretty good on only three days’ rest, but they pulled him before the seventh.
With his recent performances, there is not talk that Bednar could go in the first round of the MLB Draft, something that Andy says his son is ready for.
“Just to see how many time he was recognized, there was no Mississippi State gear, anything like that and I was really impressed,” said Andy. “My wife Sue and I were really impressed how well he was able to handle that with young kids asking him for autographs and older people asking for pictures, he’s just handled it so well I thought.”
With David’s success in the big leagues and Will bringing home a National Championship it seems like Mars, PA is becoming the hotbed of pitching development, well, at least in the Bednar house.
Last year Will and Andy built a pitcher’s mound to give them a place to thrown.
“David uses it as well in the offseason, you know you get a nice day in November to throw . . . and we’ve been using it quite a bit,” said Andy.
Wil may be a College World Series Champion, but it’s David who says he could still take his brother in a fight.
“I think Dave hit the nail on head with that response, we were laughing pretty hard when he said that, ‘All day, every day, any day,’” said Andy.
Andy says now they’ll be talking to some people to see what is next in the draft process for Will “as far as where we think he may shake out.”