By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
@sjglorydays on Instagram
Most 18-year-olds spend the summer after they graduate from high school partying with their friends, maybe working a job as a lifeguard or at the local ice cream shop, preparing for the upcoming fall semester at the college of their choosing.
But for recent St. Augustine Prep graduate Alex Weingartner, the summer of 2026 has been anything but ordinary. It’s one he’ll remember for the rest of his life.
Instead of getting ready to attend Penn State University, Weingartner instead has gotten right into the grind of professional life. But it’s not just any professional life. It’s that of a Major League Baseball draft pick.
Oh, and he also became a millionaire.
So, yeah, it’s been a bit of a hectic summer for the former Hermits baseball star and Gatorade New Jersey Player of the Year.
He was drafted in the sixth round in July by the Chicago White Sox, signed for $1.4 million, and is currently in the Arizona Complex League — a kind of boot camp for draft picks to get them acclimated to playing baseball for a living every day.
“You have an awesome opportunity where you wake up and get better every day. And from a performance aspect, the game of baseball is going to be hard wherever you’re at. You can’t really control what happens, you can only control what you do leading up to it,” Weingartner said by phone from Arizona a few weeks ago. “As a guy who just graduated high school, I just think it’s a cool opportunity for me because in a way I’m getting out there and I’m around older guys in the same position, which is awesome. You get to be around older people who have gone through college and you get to just see how they operate and learn things from all the guys. It was pretty awesome to have the No. 1 overall pick (UCLA’s Roch Cholowsky) in our draft camp. You watch how he works and it’s just so cool to see from a performance aspect.
“There is a lot of talent here, and baseball is a very hard game,” he continued. “You just have to prepare and go into it with the same mindset you’ve had your entire life and know that it’s going to be challenging, but you just have to let everything take care of itself. The only thing you can control is how you prepare and what you do when you get into the game. Whether it’s (Arizona Complex League), single-A, double-A — wherever you’re at — just put your head down and make the most of each day because it’s going to go by really fast.”
To say 2026 has been a whirlwind for Weingartner, a Berlin native, would be a huge understatement. He went from being one of the best players in South Jersey as a junior to being one of the best in the country as a senior. He had a tremendous spring, leading Prep to 22 wins, including a berth in the Non-Public A state championship game, where the Hermits lost an epic 10-inning battle against Delbarton. He hit .495 for the season with 46 hits, 46 runs, 36 RBIs, seven home runs and 33 steals. Even knowing he wasn’t going to be a pitcher at the next level, he still went out and threw 48 innings, registering a 0.87 ERA with 81 strikeouts and consistently throwing in the low to mid-90s. In the state championship game, against one of the best teams in the region, he allowed just three hits and one earned run while striking out eight in seven innings before heading over to first base to finish out the game.
Then came the draft and everything that goes along with that. Weingartner said he knew he had a huge decision to make, one that would shape his future.
“It was crazy. It just happened, we went out and bought some (White Sox) gear. I didn’t know where I was going to go. I’m in a dorm right now and it’s pretty much like a college experience, but when you wake up you don’t have to go to school, you go and play baseball. It’s a college vibe, but it’s a very professional organization that is run well,” Weingartner said. “(Before the draft) I was just seeing how it went, and if I got picked I would make my decision after that. As soon as I got picked, I let it sit for the rest of the day. I talked to my family and just went from there. My brother called me and he was crying. I wasn’t crying until he called me, and I was like, ‘dude, why do you have to make me cry?’ It’s never been a competition between us, which is why I think we’re so close. We support each other, and we’re happy we’re doing the same thing. He’s always been my big brother, and to be able to do what he’s doing now is pretty cool.”
Making the summer even more special is that Weingartner now joins his older brother, Ryan, as a professional baseball player. Ryan, 21, was drafted in the eighth round of the 2025 draft by the St. Louis Cardinals, and currently is playing for the Palm Beach Cardinals in the single-A Florida State League. He has 12 home runs and 54 RBIs in 85 games at that level.
“It’s cool to have my brother doing it, too. We’re on the same schedule and I’m pretty pumped about that. We’ll both come home in the offseason and have the same time off. It’s surreal, but definitely cool. This is something I’ve been dreaming about and now I’m able to wake up every day and play baseball for a living,” Alex said. “He helped me a lot, like with the approach (to the draft). I tell people that without him I don’t think I’m where I’m at. It’s really cool to have him as a resource.”
Weingartner said his parents, Bill — a former player at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia — and Melissa, kept things low-key about the draft during the spring so that Alex could focus on his high school season.
“They were great in the way that we didn’t really talk about everything that much. I would bring things up if I felt like I needed to talk, but as a family it was an awesome dynamic in that I was just focusing on my senior year. I didn’t try to look too far ahead because I knew what was coming, and that it would come fast,” he said. “All I had to do was have a fun, enjoyable senior year and try to win a state championship. Once that was done and everything settled, I was open to talking about everything with them. I’m big on focusing on what’s at hand because when you start looking forward you start taking yourself out of what you’re trying to accomplish.”
Weingartner said that, of course, like most kids growing up playing baseball, he dreamed of getting drafted by a Major League team. Now, at age 18, he’s living that dream.
“It’s a cool thought because that’s something that, even as a high schooler, you always look back and say, man, if I would have told myself I would have been in this spot two years ago — I’d like to think I’d have the confidence to say, ‘yeah, of course I would be here.’ But you never know. It’s just really cool to be given this opportunity to be able to be part of an organization that is going in a very good direction. They are a really good organization and it’s awesome to be a part of it. It’s something that you look back and you’re like, I would have been really proud of myself if I told myself this is where I’d be back when I was a freshman four years ago,” Weingartner said. “You build up a resume and now I’m restarting at the bottom. I’m the rookie carrying the ball bag — but it’s cool because it’s a constant reminder that you have a long way to go as a player. I’m just super excited to get going. I have full confidence in myself, and it’s just cool to be about to go out there and get better every day.”
Weingartner said he’d be remiss if he didn’t mention how it took a lot of people believing in him to get him where he is today, and he wants more than anything to make them proud by continuing to improve and climb the minor-league ladder.
“The amount of people who have affected me — I’ve gotten better as a person and more mature,” he said. “I can’t even name the amount of people, and just knowing I have that kind of support system — even if I lost contact with some people, just knowing they affected me along my journey, there’s nothing I can do to thank those people. I’m here because of all those people, and that means a lot to me. You only get drafted once, so you have to enjoy it. All the calls and text messages were really cool.”
