Whether Alex Webb is on the field or in the classroom, the numbers seem to be on his side.
During his senior season, the six-foot-three right-hander pitched four complete games, three shutouts, and owned a 1.38 earned-run-average, which was second in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, on his way to winning 2016 NAIA West Pitcher of the Year — for the second consecutive season.
Since starting at UBC in 2012, Webb completed 127 credits of an electrical engineering degree, maintained an A-minus average, and won multiple awards on the field, including a nod as an Academic American since the Canadian plays in a primarily U.S. league.
But when the Cincinnati Reds selected Webb in the ninth round of the 2016 MLB draft in June, he was still 25 credits short of graduating. For many, a professional contract is a reason to ditch school, but it wasn’t for Webb.
“Engineering was there before I considered baseball,” said Webb, who grew up in White Rock. “I’ve put in four years, all this money and time — it’s just something I’ve got to do.”
A successful summer moving up through the Reds system saw Webb promoted from the Billings Mustangs in the Rookie League to their single-A affiliate, the Dayton Dragons, for three games. Webb will spend his entire off-season, from September to March, at home in B.C., finishing the lasttechnical requirements of his engineering degree. In one of those assignments, he has eight months to work with a group and design modelling software for a real-world client. The final presentation is due in April.
But come March, school and baseball will begin to overlap. As the design project reaches its final stages, Webb will have to leave his classmates in Vancouver for teammates in Arizona where he will compete for a spot in the Reds minor league system.
“I see myself doing baseball in the morning, what school I have to do in the afternoon, and at night, making sure I just keep in touch with my group,” he said.
Webb was one of four Thunderbirds selected in the MLB draft this summer. Then, in August with the Dragons, a line-drive bounced off both him and the ump, making him internet-famous in for this remarkble 1-umpire-6-3 double play. (He said the hit only "skimmed off" him and didn't hurt.)
Was that a 1-Blue-6-3 double play?! @SportsCenter #SCtop10 pic.twitter.com/1qFdwTVnIp
— Dayton Dragons (@DragonsBaseball) August 12, 2016
When he is scheduled to give his final group presentation in the spring, Webb could be in Montana with the Mustangs or in Ohio, starting his first full season for the Dragons. To finish the school assignment with a group presentation, Webb hopes the Reds will permit him to fly home for a day — or at the very least, take part via Skype.
Webb said he’d rather not have to balance a major, partly peer-reviewed project with one of the most important opportunities to make an impression in professional sport. So why put himself in that position in the first place?
He didn’t want to waste any time. Not for baseball and not for engineering.
“It would be really hard to jump back into engineering with a lot of time off. I wanted to do it while the information was still fresh in my head,” said Webb. “I figured, you’ve got time now, do it, just get it done… You don’t have to spend your whole [sports] career thinking, holy crap, you’ve got to go back to school after this.”
Terry McKaig, the director of UBC Baseball and Webb’s coach for three years, is confident the
22-year-old T-Bird will be able to pull it all off.
“It might be a little bit more intense, given he’s a professional baseball player now, but for the most part, he’s one of the more gifted student-athletes we’ve had here at UBC for finding the balance between school and baseball.”
Come next December, Webb expects to graduate and will focus exclusively on his baseball career with the Reds, striving to make the major leagues.
“I’m always confident in my abilities and I do believe I can get there,” he said.
Webb is working hard to make it all add up.
