11 November 2024
“For Mum” | The remarkably resilient story of Mitch Neunborn, pitching in honour of Mum
This story is written by Eric Balnar, with photos from Scott Powick. We are filing daily stories from Australia’s ten-day training camp in Fuchu, Japan as they prepare to play in the Premier12. For more stories, visit www.baseball.com.au/premier12. You can watch the tournament in Australia on WBSC streaming platform Gametime.Sport.
Mitch Neunborn kisses a pendant attached to his necklace every time he takes the mound.
It belonged to his mum, Lynda Neunborn. It serves as a reminder of why he plays the game.
She passed away in May 2023 after a year-long battle with cancer. Mitch was just 25.
When it happened, Mitch was overseas.
After years of grinding in an unforgiving baseball world, through two major surgeries and working multiple jobs at once, Mitch finally had his baseball dream come true. He had just signed his first professional baseball contract in April 2023.
“A lifelong dream,” he calls it.
Mitch delayed the start of his professional career to stay with his mum while she was in hospice before heading to America at the beginning of May.
“That was the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life. I still struggle with it today,” he says.
“But she was the drive and the motivation behind it. She told me to go. She knows my ups and downs. She knows my surgeries and Tommy Johns and the adversity I have been through. To her, it was a no-brainer.”
“She made me chase the dream, just like she always has,” he adds. “She knows my story.”
It’s redefined his ‘why’ he plays the game.
“It’s me trying to keep her proud and trying to keep the legacy of what she’s sacrificed to play the game I love. She was a massive factor in me travelling and to be able to play on this team. She was very supportive. It’s given me an extra push to never give up and keep going with the sport,” he says.
That legacy will be preserved when Mitch pitches for his country as soon as Wednesday night vs Japan at the Premier12 in front of 40,000+ people.
So in honour of Mitch and his Mum. This is a story of his baseball journey, injury, adversity, and a mother who wouldn’t let her son give up on his dream.
“A story of resilience personified,” one coach called it.
PROMISING AUSSIE TWO-WAY PROSPECT, OVERCOMING INJURY
Neunborn was always a highly-talented junior baseball player. He started at Melville Braves and stayed there for his entire Western Australian club ball career.
He not only would command the middle infield, but he had a handy bat and could pitch with prowess from the mound.
Growing up in the Perth system, Neunborn starred for junior and WA state teams.
“I played a lot of sports and my parents were great,” he says. “I was from a split household, but no matter who it was, mum or dad, they would make sure I was able to get to the [sports] I wanted to do.”
He was recognised early by Australian selectors. At just 19-years-old, he was selected to play for Australia at the U23 World Cup. He pitched and hit, and Australia won silver – their best ever showing at that particular event.
With the power of his parents and community, Mitch took his dream overseas. He committed to Northern Iowa Community College – a junior college – in the United States.
In his injury plagued career which lasted just one season, he posted a 3.18 ERA while slashing .331/.435/.665 at the plate. He led the team in homers.
“I was able to do a lot of trips to the states and even go to college,” says Neunborn. “It’s all through them, through mum and dad. I was obviously not able to pay for all that. They sacrificed all their time & money to reach their goal.”
Despite his college success, Neunborn never had a chance to fully explore professional chances in front of scouts. Injuries had a lot to do with it.
His list of injuries seems unbelievable itself.
In 2016, he tore his UCL (elbow) two months into his freshman year.
In 2017, he had his first Tommy John Surgery. It’s an injury which takes about a year to recover from.
Nine months later he had an MRI and the graft failed.
“There was a less than one percent chance of something like that happening,” says Neunborn. “Somehow my body basically ate the graft.”
He had a second Tommy John surgery in 2018.
When he was healthy, he debuted for the Perth Heat in the Australian Baseball League in the last half of the 2019-20 season.
He signed with Adelaide Giants the following season.
“When he came to us we had glowing recommendations of him as a player and a person,” says Team Australia hitting coach Chris Adamson, who manages Neunborn both with the Adelaide Giants and in the Phillies’ minor leagues.
“The whole story of Mitch is just resilience personified,” he adds.
In a COVID-shortened 2020-21 ABL campaign, Neunborn became the ace of the Giants’ staff, winning the league’s Rookie of the Year award.
“I think it’s the ‘when’ these injuries that make it amazing,” says Adamson. “All these injuries happened before he signed in pro ball. Most people in his situation have already started. He had to show resilience. It would have been easy just to say no, and go play amateur. He could have just said pro ball is not for me. It would have been understandable. To push through all that before he got a crack? It’s wild.”
Then, the world shut down and the next obstacle reared its head.
There was no Australian Baseball League and professional competition for Mitch to play in between February 2021 and November 2022.
AN UNBELIEVABLE YEAR FULL OF HIGHS AND LOWS
Not many people can say they’ve experienced the sort of whirlwind year Neunborn had between June 2022 and June 2023.
In a twelve month stretch, the Aussie arm went from working two ‘regular’ jobs to winning a Claxton Shield, signing his first professional baseball contract, and making his senior team tournament debut at the World Baseball Classic.
Let’s start in June, 2022. He worked two jobs – as plumber’s assistant and in disability support.
“But I was always a baseball player,” laughs Mitch. “In all my spare time I was at the field, working, training, still believing. That never went away.”
It was also around the time he found out his Mum was sick. Things moved fast.
While his mother was struggling with a health battle, Mitch’s career took off.
To make things tricky, Neunborn was playing interstate in Adelaide for the Giants.
He dazzled that ABL season. He delivered a 2.25 ERA in 28.0 innings with a strikeout per nine innings ratio of 11.9.
“The biggest thing for me was outing to outing the self belief we saw grow over time. You could see he just started to know he belonged,” he says. “To see that was really special to witness.”
Neunborn was the Giants’ high-leverage guy, often used in the biggest of situations in 2022-23. He played his part in helping the Giants break a 43-year championship drought for South Australia in the ABL.
Neunborn only allowed six hits after December 1. He faced 68 batters.
That’s the kind of stuff that gets you signed.
In club land, Neunborn played second base and was the West Torrens Eagles go-to pitcher as they won two straight titles.
A dream of almost any Australian baseballer is to play for your country. Mitch parlayed his strong ABL season into the call of his life – to pitch for your country at the game’s biggest international tournament.
Neunborn pitched key innings in Australia’s win over Korea and the quarterfinal clincher vs Czechia.
Team Australia pitching coach Jim Bennett says he loved what he saw.
“When I see that change-up, I go wow this is a big league change up, that’s a plus-plus pitch” says Bennett. “Then you see his fastball at the WBC, he just has such a good mix. He has an ability to locate his pitch.”
But Bennett says what drew him to Neunborn was his attitude.
“He’s a competitor. He will do whatever it takes for the green & gold,” he says.
For Neunborn, it meant everything.
“It was complete justification for everything I was doing. Both for me, but also for the people who have supported me,” he says.
While his dad and step-mom were able to travel to Tokyo, his mum watched from a hospital bed in Perth.
“It was justification for the sacrifices my parents had,” he says.
It’s hard to miss Mitch’s dad, Peter. He is boisterous, positive and wears a trademark fighting kangaroo outfit.
Mitch says he feels the love and support from his dad wherever he goes, too.
“The similarities between Mitch and his family, with setbacks, injuries and disappointments, just to see his ability to find that inner resiliency and keep chasing that dream is pretty wild,” he says. “Not a lot of people can say the same.”
FOR MUM
Since signing with the Phillies, Mitch has seen success in the USA.
In his first year of professional minor league baseball, Neunborn had a 3.38 ERA in 42.2 innings for the Jersey Shore Blue Claws (High-A).
His stuff was promising enough to be assigned to the Arizona Fall League, an October competition reserved for only the best prospects in baseball.
After a slow start in the 2024 season, Neunborn found his form. His 2.39 ERA in High-A was one of the best in the league. He ended the season in Double-A, a competition reserved for promising young players tipped to one day make the Majors. He’s quite literally knocking on the door of a Major League dream.
He’ll pitch for the Adelaide Giants in the ABL when the Premier12 comes to an end.
Mitch says no matter what uniform he is wearing, he can feel his mum wherever he goes. Although, it’s hard to look into the stands and notice an absence.
“I know exactly where she would [usually] sit at my games. I know exactly where she would sit if she was here,” he says. “It’s always on your mind. I’m always looking at those spots knowing she’s not there but that she’s still watching.”
Mitch’s dad will make the trip over to Japan and Taiwan to cheer Mitch on. He says that support means the world to him. But still, he misses mum.
He says he feels grateful for all his parents helped him become.
“Without them I would never have been a professional athlete. Those building blocks I never had an understanding to grasp what was important. When you lose someone like that, it’s super hard to compartmentalise everything. She was the building blocks of everything I have done.”
When you see Mitch pitching for Australia vs some of the best players in the world this year, know his mum with him.
Whether it’s with the Adelaide Giants, the Reading Fightin’ Phils, or for his country, his mum is on the mound too.
“They, my parents, made life easy when it wasn’t. I’m grateful for that.”
