By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher Deaf children have a difficult time expressing their feelings. They tend to internalize a lot because even if they are able to verbalize some speech, many times they are not confident that they can communicate how they are feeling. Ethan Herscher, a 15-year-old freshman pitcher at Vineland High School, is deaf, and when his adoptive mother Carolyn died on May 11 following a long battle with cancer, he found the best way to deal with his grief was to continue to toe the rubber for the Fighting Clan’s freshman team and do the things he knows best — throwing strikes, and winning baseball games. Vineland freshman baseball coach Travis Amstutz said he was willing to give Ethan all the time he needed after Carolyn’s passing, but wasn’t surprised that just a few days later Ethan was on the hill against Mainland Regional. The Fighting Clan scored a walk-off win over the Mustangs that day, and in Ethan’s final start of the season, against Clearview, he threw a two-hitter and struck out 12. “I never got a chance to meet his mom, but I found out through the grapevine that she had been sick for a while. It’s a tough situation for anybody, let alone a 15-year-old kid. The interpreters came and told me the morning it happened. We had a game that day, so obviously I knew he wouldn’t be around that day and we wanted him to take as much time as he needed. But knowing Ethan, he wanted to be out there with his guys. He was out there the next game. It was the Millville game the day it happened, and we won that game and dedicated that win to him and his mom. The guys on the team have been unbelievable,” Amstutz said. 
Just a few days after his adoptive mother died after a battle with cancer, Vineland’s Ethan Herscher pitched his Fighting Clan freshman team to a win over Mainland Regional. In his final start of the year, he struck out 12 in a win over Clearview Regional. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) “He came back against Absegami, had two or three hits, and you could tell he was really excited to be back out there for the guys. The funeral was the next day and what was great was that all the players went to the funeral without me even saying anything. Then he got the ball in the Mainland game and threw the ball well. I don’t know if that was motivation, but he was really hyper-focused the last part of the year.” “It’s hard to show how I feel because I don’t want people to feel bad for me,” said Ethan, who can verbalize to a certain extent but relies a lot on interpreters such as Sara Gilrain (NIC), among others, to communicate through sign language during school and on the baseball field. “My mom is in heaven and she’s watching me, and she wants me to play baseball. I felt like I had to do better than I used to. Coach always wants me to do better every game I play. It made me feel proud and I hope my mom is proud that I won for her.” Carolyn and husband George Herscher adopted Ethan when he was about two years old, and Gilrain, who has known Ethan since he was about 10 years old, said he was not the easiest child to deal with. But, she said, he has really matured and she credits his first season of high school baseball with bringing him out of his shell and teaching him the importance of responsibility and accountability. “He has improved emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. He had a dark side when he was younger, but he has definitely matured. Baseball has been important because he has friends and family who support him and care about him,” Gilrain said. “He has language now, so life has really changed for him. His communication skills are amazing now. In the past, we couldn’t just sit and have a conversation. I think because he was so introverted, he just internalized everything. Now he has grown up. He projects his voice and has understanding.” Amstutz said he noticed Ethan’s work ethic during last summer’s offseason conditioning program and had a feeling he was going to be a solid baseball player. His intuition was spot on, as Ethan hit .372 in 43 at-bats and also went 4-0 with a 1.73 ERA and 44 strikeouts in 33 innings on the mound. “My first impression was that he was a hard worker, as soon as I saw him in the weight room. Some guys are in there to socialize and some guys are in there to make themselves better. That’s the impression he gave me. He’s strong for a freshman. He’s a very hard worker and I was impressed by that,” Amstutz said. “In the classroom, I’ve had hearing impaired students where we have had an interpreter in the room. I didn’t realize how good he was going into tryouts and then we clocked him at about 84 mph. And the interpreter was always with him during tryouts and practice. (Varsity coach John Malatesta) and the other coaches were trying to figure out in what ways we could communicate with him. There is baseball language and there is regular language, and I think he and I did a good job with the baseball language. Fortunately, he’s such a good pitcher that I didn’t have to make many mound visits to adjust what he was doing.” Amstutz said he was concerned about how Ethan would respond after Carolyn died. It’s not easy to predict how a 15-year-old boy will react to a traumatic life event. “I talked to the interpreters and his father just to make sure everything was OK. The hard part was knowing what was going through his mind because he’s not real verbal in talking about things, let alone his emotions. I just kind of let him do whatever he wanted to do. He and I were in communication through text, and I think more than anything he just wanted to get back out there. When he came back he tore the cover off the ball. In the last five games of the year he batted over .500, and in the last game of the year he threw a 2-hitter with 12 strikeouts,” Amstutz said. “We were talking about that as a coaching staff, about how this is the third or fourth kid whose mother has passed away during a season. So our program has gone through it. I still have my parents, so I can’t imagine how tough this has been for him. 
Herscher also was one of the Vineland freshman team’s leading hitters, finishing with a .372 batting average. “I was confident in his ability, but about 80 percent of pitching is mental. So it could have gone either way. It could have gone really bad or it could have gone really well. He started off (against Mainland) a little bit shaky, but then you could tell after the second inning that he was in there and he was focused. The was a great win. It went all the way down to the final out of the seventh inning and we won in walk-off fashion.” Ethan said it wasn’t really a difficult decision to come back to the team as quickly as he did. It’s what his mother would have wanted, he said. “I think she would feel like I should play baseball because I like it. I want to make her happy,” Ethan said. “Whenever I would leave the house she would always say goodbye and good luck. She was a good mom for me. I will remember her as a great mom. “I just wanted to do my job right and win games. Baseball is important to me because my dad always likes the things I do best at, and baseball is the thing I’m best at.” “It’s unfortunate,” Gilrain said about Carolyn’s death, “but I feel pretty strongly, now that Ethan has language, he will have a much better understanding of everything. I feel that there were gaps. His speech has improved amazingly in the last three months. I think it’s confidence and self esteem, and that’s from b
aseball and his family.” Amstutz said he has been very impressed with Ethan’s ability to remain focused during such a difficult time in his personal life, and is confident Ethan will be a huge part of the Vineland baseball program at the varsity level the next few seasons. “He’s one of the best kids I’ve known, and not just on the baseball field,” Amstutz said. “The adversity he has had to go through is crazy. But baseball-wise, with his work ethic, he’s baseball 24/7 and I expect some good things from him. His grades are good, and I’m really excited for him. He’s a really great kid.” Ethan will rely a lot on his father as he comes of age during his high school years, and baseball will remain the glue that holds them together. “My dad always helps me. He’s always telling me to be on time and wants me to do good and make him proud. He comes to my games every time to watch me,” Ethan said. “He wants me to win for him and my team and my mom. He doesn’t want me to cry, or be sad, or be upset. It’s sad, but we know she is in a better place.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]
Vineland freshman Ethan Herscher lost his mother during season, but gained inspiration from her fight against cancer
