Be Where Your Feet Are: Eric Rataczak ‘19

With the sun beaming down, decked out in Miami Marlins Spring Training gear, Eric Rataczak ‘19 sat down to answer some questions. He was apologetic–the game he had just finished had gone late–but he was all smiles. And why wouldn’t he be? He had just finished an MLB game, a dream scenario that just five years ago, he hadn’t thought possible.

When he left Totino-Grace High School in the spring of 2019, Rataczak’s goals were academic. He attended the University of San Diego that fall “as a student,” he said. “I wasn’t recruited there to play or anything. I played on the club team.” And after a short semester and a half, Rataczak returned home to Minnesota. The COVID-19 pandemic had begun.

Like many students in the spring of 2020, he finished the semester remotely. Since the following year would have been remote anyway, Eric chose, instead, to begin playing for a local post-graduate baseball team–Minnesota Post Grad–and coached high school players out of the same facility. “[I] saved some money, didn’t spend it on tuition during COVID, and got to play a little more baseball.” This led to an opportunity to play for a team in the Northwoods league, a collegiate summer league based in the Midwest.

2020 would prove to be a pivotal year for many reasons. “With COVID happening and me deciding to take that year off, [it] kind of reopened some potential doors. That also lined up with when I was diagnosed with diabetes, which played a big part in it, because I gained a bunch of weight and I got a lot stronger. So I had all this new strength and at the same time was taking a year off school.”

Despite the newfound strength that came along with his recovery after a crucial diagnosis, Rataczak received few opportunities related to baseball. With a gap year under his belt, he returned to college. An Illinois junior college, Wabash Valley Junior College, had welcomed him into their baseball program. Unfortunately, Eric didn’t see much opportunity ahead of him. “At the winter break, I actually transferred to a different junior college,” he explained. “Based on a whole bunch of things. It was mostly about just trying to get on the field, and I didn’t think I was going to at [Wabash].” So he packed his bags once again, this time taking his talents to Arizona Western. There, he actually got on the field, and, in his words, “did…alright. Not great. Not bad, but not great. Not good enough to get anything that I deemed worthy of sacrificing my education for.” His options, he told us, weren’t bad baseball teams, but they were bad academic options, and “they weren’t good enough [at] baseball to merit how poor the academics would have been.”

After waiting all summer, just on the off-chance that a worthwhile opportunity would arise, Rataczak re-enrolled at San Diego. He still had his academic scholarship, and, with no baseball prospects to speak of, saw it as his only option. “If you ask my mom how I was to travel with when we drove down to San Diego,” he said, “I was a bad travel companion for sure. I was very unhappy.”

“It was kind of just like, ‘I’m out of options. Looks like I’m going back to USD.’” And it was back to club ball, too. No varsity, no starting spot, just club baseball and intramural softball.

Not that he didn’t play his hardest, of course. “My friends would probably tell stories about me taking intramural sports way too seriously. Like, I showed up to our softball games with metal spikes on, you know. It was just that outlet that was completely missing.”

This was his junior year. Many MLB teams will recruit players out of high school or early in their college careers. And many more players will at least have conversations with teams by their junior or senior years. That is, if they’re destined for the MLB. For Rataczak, this wasn’t even on his radar. Not only had no MLB team come to talk with him, no Division 1 school had done so, either.

Looking back on his high school years, Eric remembers Totino-Grace’s baseball team environment most fondly. “You learn so much,” he said. “There’s a certain dynamic that goes around in sports, especially as the levels get higher. You [have] old guys and young guys, seniors and freshmen, all kind of learning how to interact. How to be able to advocate for yourself when the older guys are acting out of line, and then how to be an older guy. Once you get to that point, you help the young guys out. It’s worthwhile to be in that environment, you know?”

He carried those lessons with him into the classroom and his relationships. But baseball, for all intents and purposes, was a hobby now. “That junior year at USD really made me feel like, okay, it makes more sense to pick somewhere for the school, and to be a good student.” But something was off. “Day to day, I just like, [didn’t] enjoy living with myself, making that decision.”

So the summer after his junior year, Eric decided to take one last shot. And in an unlikely place: Alberta, Canada. He explained his thought process as “Okay, that has nothing to do with school. I can just go, play, and have fun, and see what happens.”

What happened was unexpected. “I did well enough there to have D1 interest.” With a humble qualifier: “It’s mid-major D1 Niagara, not by any means a powerhouse, in any sport. And they’re not going to take down Florida State or Tennessee anytime soon in the College World Series. But it’s still D1 baseball.” This moment, after four years of seemingly fruitless effort on different teams across North America, was a moment that Rataczak knew would change the course of his life.

“By making the decision to go to Niagara,” he said, “it was basically me pushing all in on baseball. I was a biology student, and their bio program was not at all what I wanted to study.” He finished his degree, having spent far too much time working on it to simply let it go, but Niagara certainly wasn’t the logical choice for an academic experience; he was there to play baseball.

And play he did. Rataczak was electric, hitting 17 home runs and driving in 71 RBI with a conference-leading.396 batting average. He now holds the Niagara single-season records in runs (59), hits (88), home runs (17), and RBI (71), while coming in at fourth all-time in single-season batting average (.396) and second in at-bats (222).

Then, five years removed from his graduation at Totino-Grace, five years after leaving his high school baseball program behind with no D1 offers and no pro prospects at all, Eric Rataczak was drafted in the 16th round of the MLB Draft by the Miami Marlins.

There’s no specific secret that he can credit for his success; at every point in his journey, there have been challenges to overcome, but he’s found strength, most often, in the simple act of being present. “It’s not my quote because it’s been said many times before, but it’s a great piece of advice that I think applies to baseball and to life: be where your feet are.” He points to significant moments along the way: the way that Mrs. Dengerud showed her care for students beyond the classroom, the community he found on the baseball field, the resilience he learned with every setback and every success.

When asked about the advice he might give to the students at TG today, he gave a surprising answer: “I would not tell anyone, ‘Hey, everyone can make it,’ because that’s not the case. I was that kid losing confidence, for sure, not being recruited to any college or anything like that.” What would he say, then? “Ask yourself: do you really enjoy the activity of the sport, or do you enjoy being on a team?” Many players want the feeling of being on a team, that feeling of community. In fact, that’s what he carried with him from Totino-Grace.

“But don’t confuse that with wanting to play the sport through the trials and tribulations that are going to come if you keep prioritizing the sport. Don’t prioritize the sport over your life decisions, and your ability to enjoy other aspects of your life.”

As we wrapped up our conversation, I asked Rataczak what his next goal was. I knew the answer, of course, because I was speaking to a minor league baseball player: the next goal is the big leagues. But he’s trying to take it day by day and enjoying the ride as it comes.

Whatever comes his way, he can be confident that he gave it all he had, and then some. On a road that took him from Minnesota to California, Illinois to Arizona, Canada to New York and, finally, to Jupiter, Florida, Eric Rataczak has remained steadfast, taking his setbacks in stride, being a positive part of every community along the way, all the while embodying the virtues that Totino-Grace seeks to instill in every student who passes through these doors: learning, community, and faith.