Baseball
Favorite athlete: Will always be a fan of Alex Rodriguez
Favorite team: New York Yankees
Favorite memory competing in sports: Throwing a no-hitter just one walk away from a perfect game.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: During warm-ups, there was a fly ball about to go over the fence, but the other fielder did not know how close he was to the fence (the fence was about mid-section high), and while going for the ball, he ran into the fence, flipping over it. But…he caught it and wasn’t hurt, so it was funny.
Music on iPod: Rock and pop
Future plans: Hoping to major in aerospace engineering and get a job working for one of the top aviation firms.
Words to live by: “The difference between the impossible and possible lies in a person’s determination.” –Tommy Lasorda
One goal before turning 30: To earn a degree in aerospace engineering and work for an aviation company (such as Lockheed Martin or Boeing), then begin a large-scale project to create an aircraft designed by myself.
By Mary Jane Souder
Torin Martutartus showed signs of possessing remarkable leadership qualities at a young age.
“He was a sixth grade student in my class, and literally, when I put him in a group, he brought up the kids’ grades around him, and it wasn’t because they were copying off him,” Jon Pallone said “He just came with such an attitude – he wanted to learn, and the kids saw how much he wanted to learn and how it can be fun.
“He’s a nice kid, he’s a likable kid, and the other kids said, ‘Hey, he’s studying, we’re going to do this too.’ I remember an old, old Simpsons episode where, at a parent-teacher conference, they showed the black hole where Bart sits, and every kid’s grade goes down the black hole the closer they sit to Bart.
“Torin is the opposite of that. Wherever he sits, everybody else does better because he’s focused. He’s just a great guy. He really is.”
Six years later, Pallone named Martutartus, now a senior, the first captain of his Quakertown baseball squad.
“Every program I’ve ever been in – we’ve never had captains,” the Panthers’ coach said. “My high school program, my college program, most of the programs I’ve coached in.”
Pallone had a change of heart after listening to a speaker at a coaching clinic in Connecticut during the offseason.
“As their coach, you want to instill leadership in your guys, especially when some of the guys naturally have those qualities and you can build on it and hope that builds to some of the other guys as well,” he said.
Pallone didn’t choose a captain by a vote of the players but rather he asked them to write down their thoughts on what direction they believed the team should be heading and how they could facilitate that leadership.
“I wrote that we have to pinpoint what we have to work on and then go out there and practice – we can’t screw around,” Martutartus said. “Basically, we needed to let the playing talk for itself and not overthink too much like I do myself.”
Pallone liked what he heard.
“He saw us continually improving and saw a need for leadership from the players on the bench and on the field to push one another, just all the things you want in a guy that’s a captain,” the Panthers’ coach said. “He really rose up to that. He’s very mature and wise and a very smart kid.”
Martutartus was a natural choice for captain, a role he took to heart.
“It meant a lot because coach Pallone didn’t pick captains before,” he said. “As the only captain throughout the season, I loved going out there the beginning of every game and talking to the umps.
“That was an honor for me because I can’t just go out there every day and say, ‘Hey, I’m a player.’ Now I’m also a captain, and I’m going to have to take leadership of the team, which will also influence the others coming through the system to try and do stuff like that too.”
Martutartus – who admits he could be his own worst enemy - wasn’t a star, but the senior rightfielder’s value was underscored when he wasn’t in the lineup.
“One game we didn’t have him out there – we had a guy out of position trying to get another bat in the lineup, and (the opposing team) found him one inning, and it ended up being a big inning,” Pallone said. “We really kind of paid for not having him out there.
“Defensively, he’s solid. He struggled a little bit pitching this year, but no matter what – whether he was struggling or not, he had the right attitude that – ‘Hey, I want to get back out there, I want to prove it to my teammates, I want to prove it to my coach, and I want to prove it to myself.’ He’d work his butt off in practice to try and give himself more opportunities.”
It’s the kind of attitude, according to Pallone, that is all too rare.
“It’s vital to have someone like that in this day and age where guys think if they’re not the star player, they’re a failure,” he said. “Really to have a good team, especially for a program like ours where we’re the underdog, we’ve got to be uniform top to bottom and have those examples of ‘we win, we do this, not I” setting that example.”
On the bench or on the field, Martutartus’ positive approach to the game never changed.
“When he was on the bench, he was out there getting us going,” Pallone said. “Sometimes you have a guy that’s normally in the lineup and when they’re not in the lineup, they sit in the dugout and pout.
“He would never do that. It wouldn’t even cross his mind, and that’s big for us as a program because especially not having as much success as other programs – guys get frustrated – ‘Hey, we’re not winning and I’m not playing.’”
Martutartus is matter-of-fact when asked about his role when he wasn’t in the lineup.
“It’s grueling on the mental aspect,” he said. “You want to go out there and give it your all every single game, but at the time when everything is not going your way, you just have to step back, let the others play and get back to practice and start figuring out what you have to work on to get through to the next time and get into that lineup.”
Martutartus – who has been playing competitive baseball since a young age - is driven by his love for the game.
“I just always had a passion for it,” he said. “I always told anyone around me that I wanted to be a baseball player.
“I’m very competitive, and that’s just the sport I was drawn to. I love being out on the field. I would go out weekends and practice with my dad. I would just go out and practice and do stuff on my own. Since (the Continental Conference) is such a highly competitive conference, I knew I had to be something more than the average player.”
The toughest part of the game for Martutartus might well be the mental aspect. His penchant for overthinking might come from the fact that he is highly intelligent, boasting a 4.0 GPA in the classroom.
“They always tell me, ‘You’re a smart kid, and when you’re out on the baseball field and giving it all you’ve got, you can’t overthink things,’” he said.
While the senior captain had his ups and downs this season, Martutartus closed out his high school career in style.
“He had a monster Senior Night,” Pallone said of the Panthers’ game against Southern Lehigh. “I had him batting eighth, and he was 3-for-3 with two doubles and a triple.
“He just mashed everything. He’s had that in him all year. It was good to see him do that. It couldn’t have happened to a better guy. He worked his butt off in the offseason, and he’s setting the example for the guys in the weight room.”
Martutartus credited his family for their support throughout his baseball career.
"My whole family has supported and encouraged me throughout all my endeavors," he said. "I want to thank them for all their love and support as my baseball career is coming to an end."
Baseball will not be part of the future for Martutartus, unless he competes at the club level. Academics came first, and he chose Penn State University from an impressive list of schools - he also was accepted at the University of Maryland, the University of Cincinnati, North Carolina State, University of Illinois, Purdue and Virginia Tech.
“I could have gone to a D-II or a smaller D-1 school to play baseball, but in the end, I saw education first,” he said.
The vice president of National Honor Society, he was enrolled in five AP classes this year. At Penn State this fall, he plans to major in aerospace engineering.
“Honestly, I would love to either work for Lockheed Martin or Boeing or one of the top aviation companies and design either some sort of spacecraft or aircraft that could advance humanity's understanding of space and the undiscovered aspects of the universe,” he said.
Marturtartus , who walks away from high school baseball with fond memories of the friendships he’s formed, will be missed.
“He didn’t have an amazing season on the field, but he’s certainly an amazing kid,” Pallone said of a student-athlete who made others around him better just by his presence.
