“[Outfielder] Joe Llanes came in here green as grass. He was a pitcher in high school. We did not recruit him.

“He came out here, played the JV season and worked, worked, worked. He was a below-average defensive outfielder. He made himself into a good outfielder. He made himself into an excellent baserunner.

“Even with his personal situation [Llanes had surgery for testicular cancer last summer], never once this year did he bring it up. He just wanted to play ball.

“This kid was 20 years old, and he’s got cancer, and his concern is he’s not playing summer baseball. And he’s thinking that you, the coach, is down on him. He’s going through chemo, and he’s saying ‘Coach, I’m going to get a lot of work in, I’m going to get a lot of work in...’

“He goes out there and he’s working day in and day out. You can’t walk in the weight room without seeing him. He’s put on 15 pounds [of muscle].

“The baseball gods were at Cooperstown or someplace on Sunday, because if they were at Harvard, that ball would have been out of here.

“And then-boom!-we’d be in the playoffs and we’d be jumping all over Joe Llanes.

“I would have been looking up in his dad’s eyes up in the stands at that moment.