August 15, 2017
Adam Haseley has had a busy last 12 months, from playing collegiate baseball and then summer ball in the Cape Cod League, back to college, being selected in the first round of the Major League Baseball Draft, getting started in pro ball in Clearwater, then to short-season Williamsport, and, finally, arriving Tuesday to the Lakewood BlueClaws of the South Atlantic League, where he'll play with fellow center fielder and first-round pick Mickey Moniak.
The 21-year-old Haseley’s home base for the majority of that time was Charlottesville, Virginia. An Orlando native, Haseley spent the last three years at the University of Virginia.
This weekend, before making his way from Williamsport, Pa., to Lakewood, N.J., Haseley watched the deadly Charlottesville attack incited by the white supremacist groups congregating in the city.
“We had a home series so I was in Williamsport watching it,” Haseley said before the BlueClaws game at FirstEnergy Park. “I just kept trying to check up with the news to see what was happening. I know that community, I’ve been there for three years. I know that doesn’t represent the people that I was around and that I was interacting with. It was sad, I think that’s a good word, a good way to put it.”
At UVA, Haseley was known by his teammates as “Rev,” a nickname he received because of his strong Christian faith. He attended The First Academy, a private Christian school in Orlando, before enrolling at Virginia.
He knows that the horrific events from this weekend are not representative of the college town he called home for the last three years.
“That’s something that happened there, but I know there’s a lot of quality people there,” he said. “And I know that Virginia, especially as an institution, will rebound from it with something much greater.”
Haseley was selected by the Phillies with the eighth-overall pick in June’s draft. One of his Cavaliers teammates, Pavin Smith, went 7th overall to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The two former teammates have often traded texts during their first summer in pro ball. They were surely in contact this weekend, when the UVA community came together both near and afar as they, along with the rest of the world, watched the ugly racial unrest unfold.
“It’s a good town, a good community,” Haseley said. “I’ve never experienced anything like that when I was there.”
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