Rob Wheeler is nothing if not hardy. He’s a native Minnesotan, after all, a breed that rolls with the punches of a state boasting but two seasons: winter and July.

But nearly four years ago, when Wheeler traded the baseball diamonds of suburban Minnetonka for that of Harvard’s O’Donnell Field, the first baseman didn’t know just what he had in him.

“I contemplated quitting freshman year,” Wheeler, now a senior, admits. And it’s no wonder.

Once a big fish in the small pond of Blake High School, Wheeler played only five games in the field his rookie year with the Crimson, starting just once and batting an underwhelming .143. His six appearances on the mound were good for a bloated ERA of 7.50. His sophomore campaign offered only more of the same, with just six opportunities to start all season.

Wheeler began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, his numbers might reflect a true inability to adjust.

“Obviously, it’s frustrating,” he says, “and obviously, you want to be out there making the plays.”

Ultimately, though, “I just couldn’t quit”—and for reasons that would make Hollywood screenwriters drool. Wheeler loves the game. He loves his teammates. He loves what he learned from his father, Bill, a Tennessean catcher who earned a scholarship to Vanderbilt, only to blow out his knee before backstopping a single pitch for the Commodores.

“Look,” Wheeler told himself last year, “only two more years of the game you love. Play it like you love it, and not like it’s your job.”

And lo and behold, the new attitude earned him 10 starts and 42 at-bats his junior season—modest numbers to be sure, but improvements nonetheless.

As soon as he stopped looking at each at-bat as a “life-or-death situation,” Wheeler recovered that confidence he’d lost somewhere between Minnetonka and Cambridge.

Now eager—rather than afraid—to enter games, the 6’3 right-hander rarely faces a pitch he gives up on altogether.

“Whereas before,” he laughs, “I definitely thought there were pitches I couldn’t hit.”

Already this season, Wheeler has maintained a healthy .320 batting average in 11 games and seven starts, splitting time as a first baseman, a designated hitter, and a pinch hitter.

Which makes it all the more interesting that today, of all times—now that it is all coming together for the 22-year-old—Wheeler is ready to give the game up.

Just like that.