Ivy Rehab’s My Glory Days: Jason Law, Mainland Regional baseball, 1998

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher Late in the 1997 season, an assistant coach for Monmouth University was scouting the Mainland Regional baseball team as the Mustangs played at Toms River South. The coach was there to see Paul Grasso, but by the time the game was over, Monmouth had another star player on its radar. Jason Law, a hard-hitting junior outfielder and pitcher at the time, had one of his best games ever, launching a pair of home runs — including a grand slam — in the Mustangs’ loss to the Indians. “That was one of the best balls I’ve ever hit in my life,” Law said of his first home run, which he deposited up onto the school in right-center field, “and later in the game I hit a grand slam. I got a call from Monmouth that night. The (Monmouth) head coach called his assistant and asked how Grasso did. The assistant said, ‘Grasso did great, and so did Law. We’re getting them both.’ And we both ended up going to Monmouth, so that’s a game that really stuck out.” Law, the oldest of three baseball-playing brothers, graduated from Mainland in 1998 after an outstanding baseball career, went on to play at Monmouth University and played four years of professional independent baseball, including two seasons with the now-defunct Atlantic City Surf. His professional playing career came to an end in 2005 after suffering a shoulder injury while playing with the Surf, but since then he has made a name for himself as one of the top hitting instructors in the area, as well as a personal trainer at Living Well CrossFit in Northfield. Law said he remembers this time of year well, as the new season was set to begin and uniforms were being handed out. “You think about high school baseball, and you drive past the field and you start thinking, dang, my 20-year reunion is coming up,” Law said. “I really enjoyed high school baseball. A lot of my friends played and it was a really good time. I remember being super anxious, just really ready to go. I just wanted to get on the field and play. I remember the big deal was, we had our home whites, then we had the green jerseys with the names on the back. So you get a jersey with your name on the back, and to a high school kid, that’s like winning the lottery. That’s the coolest thing ever. Getting that green jersey was awesome.” Law got a handful of at-bats on varsity when he was a freshman, but really arrived as a sophomore, when he was the No. 2 pitcher for the Mustangs and one of the top hitters in the lineup. He said he remembers not being able to eat lunch prior to his first varsity start as a pitcher his sophomore year — that’s how nervous he was. Jason Law, who was an outstanding baseball player for Mainland Regional in the late 1990s, now works as a personal trainer and hitting coach. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) “I remember (sophomore year) my first start as a pitcher and being super nervous all day at school. I remember sitting in the cafeteria, my stomach was turning, and I looked at one of the older players on the team and I was like, ‘dude, I’m dying right now.’ It was Jimmy Wilson, and he was just like, ‘dude, you’re going to be fine. Just go out and do what you do,'” Law said. “By the end of my sophomore year we were playing in the playoffs and making some noise in South Jersey, so the next year I was more confident going into the season. Obviously, success helps, too. I had a pretty good year on the mound, and I hit pretty well, so going into junior year I was ready to go. It was great having Paul there. We both came up as sophomores, and it was like we were mirror images of each other going up the ladder.” Law and Grasso helped make Mainland one of the top teams in South Jersey in the late 1990s under coach Gary Hegh. The two were quite a pair in the middle of the Mustangs’ batting order. “I don’t think I had any earth shattering numbers, but I was a solid pitcher and batted fourth in the lineup. My sophomore year, I broke the RBI record, then the following year I re-broke it but Paul Grasso had more than me so he ended up with it,” Law said. “Paul was probably the best high school player I’ve seen. He and I played together at Mainland and at Monmouth. We hit third and fourth in the lineup, were both big lefties who could hit the ball far. It was kind of an unspoken competition between the two of us. We played summer ball together, he grew up in the house next door to me. Paul was always a natural athlete.” Law comes from a very athletic family. His father, Jonathan, was a Mainland graduate who played baseball at Monmouth and his mother, Nancy, also was an athlete. Brother Ian played at Lafayette and the youngest of the three brothers, Charlie, was drafted by the Phillies out of Mainland High before deciding to play at Rutgers. Law said there are still debates as to who the best baseball player in the family is. “Ian was always the field general. He played shortstop, he could bat in any spot in the order, knew the game better than anybody else. It was kind of cool because one was better than the next. I had a pretty good career, then Ian came along and he was all-state and played four years at Lafayette, then Charlie got drafted out of high school and had a great college career. I set the bar nice and low,” Law said with a laugh. “We can’t have a conversation at the dinner table without one of us saying he is better than the others. I don’t know if there will ever be a definitive answer to that. Charlie was the best in high school, I argue that I was the best in college, and Ian says he was pretty good at both. We sit there and debate it. My parents must hate it. My mom always leans in the direction of Charlie. He’s the baby.” Mainland is a school well known for having pride in its athletic programs, and Law said that was as true during his high school days as it is now. “I feel like it’s pretty similar. I always rooted for the football team. I had friends on the basketball team as well, the soccer team. You always want to see your friends succeed. I’d rather see Mainland win than Ocean City, and we hated Holy Spirit back then, and Egg Harbor Township. I feel like we had a pretty good group and we were always pulling for each other,” Law said. “I had friends who didn’t play baseball and I’d see them in the stands at our games. And that translated all the way to college. One of my buddies, he was the quarterback at Mainland when I was there, he went to Wagner — Ted Gogel — Wagner was in our conference and he would drive down to Monmouth for a weekend series when we played Wagner, and it was like high school again.” Law admits he may have been scolded a time or two by teachers when he was in high school, but that was simply because of his outgoing personality. He liked to goof around and talk during class, and to this day brings that kind of laid-back attitude to his work as a personal trainer and hitting instructor. He likes to have fun with whatever he’s doing. “When kids goof around in my individual lessons, I can’t get too mad,” Law said. “Obviously, I want them to be serious and work, but if we’re going to goof around a little bit I don’t have a problem with it because that’s my personality. Some people work better like that.” Occasionally, that would grate on coach Hegh’s nerves, Law said. “He was intense, but if you worked hard and played hard, he treated you like gold,” Law said. “He may have sent me off running a time or two. But we had a good group. All four years I was at Mainland, we had a really good group.” Law said he learned a lot during his days at Mainland, not so much the intricate details of baseball, but more so how to conduct yourself as an athlete, and as a young adult. “In high school, you just follow the lead of your coach and do what comes naturally. I would just see the pitch and try to hi
t it as far as I could, that was my goal. I always just tried to be simple in the batter’s box. That was honestly my mentality. Ever since the first time I hit a ball over a fence, I was like, ‘that’s pretty cool.’ And I wanted to do that all the time,” Law said. “You learn how to play the game in high school. You learn situations. Coach Hegh was always big on us being very disciplined and accountable for what we did. We learned accountability and how not to turn one mistake into two. Some of the more in-depth stuff I learned in college and in pro ball, but high school was certainly a great learning time for me. I went from being a little kid to learning how to play the game correctly.” Law, now 35 years old, says he looks back fondly on his high school days. He remembers being a baseball nut, which was why he wasn’t too upset on graduation day. That was just one step closer to him playing college baseball. Law still plays baseball competitively, and has been a mainstay for many years for the Margate Hurricanes of the Atlantic County Baseball League. “Some people got really upset about graduating high school. I wasn’t upset, I was excited for college,” Law said. “Baseball was always on my brain, and once high school baseball was over I wanted to get to summer baseball and college baseball. I did well enough in school to remain on the field. I had the stupid idea that Cs earn degrees. But I went back to school after (playing independent ball) and got straight As.” Law’s younger brother, Charlie, played with and against current Major League Baseball star Mike Trout when Trout attended Millville High School, and Law says it’s great that South Jersey has a player of that caliber it can call its own — even if that player’s last name isn’t Law. “You can just tell by talking to anybody around here how proud everybody in South Jersey is of Mike Trout. He’s obviously phenomenal. He’s been one of the best, if not the best, player in baseball since he’s been up there. Charlie got a chance to play with him on the Arsenal team, and Trout’s dad was the coach of Millville when I was in high school. I always liked him. He’s a smart guy,” Law said. “My brother runs into Mike Trout every now and then. He loves him, says he’s one of the nicest guys he’s ever met. He ran into Trout one time and Trout wouldn’t talk about himself, he wanted to redirect the conversation to Charlie, how everything was going for him. It’s going to be fun to watch Trout and guys like Bryce Harper for the next 10 or 15 years.” Even though Law didn’t make it to the major leagues, he says he is happy with how his life has turned out. He has a great career that he loves, and has plenty of memories in the bank to tap into from his days at Mainland and Monmouth. “As a kid, your dream is always to go be a pro baseball player. Even in college, I thought I had a chance to do that. But sometimes it just doesn’t turn out the way you think it’s supposed to go,” the former college All-American said. “I really fell in love with teaching hitting. I’ve always loved to hit. My style has developed a lot the past 10 or 15 years, and I look forward to working with kids every day. I have two great jobs that I love and I get to be my own boss. I get to do what I love every day.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]