THE GLOBE-TROTTING BASEBALL LIFE OF JOE VAN METER

“Ever since I could remember, this is all I really wanted to do, is play baseball.”

Joe Van Meter was resting in his hotel room a day before he was scheduled to start for the Toros de Tijuana in Durango, Mexico, with a smile under his full beard and a head of dyed-blonde hair, reflecting on his 12 years playing professional baseball, a career that has taken him to all corners of the world.

“It’s been an amazing journey,” Van Meter said. “All the friends I’ve made, the experiences I’ve had, the cities I’ve seen. I’ve been very fortunate.”

Van Meter, originally from Long Island, started his collegiate baseball career at Arizona State in 2007. He redshirted his freshman year as a Sun Devils squad with five future major leaguers made the College World Series. 

Before the next season, he sat down with Pat Murphy, then the Arizona State head coach. Possessing the talent to get drafted, but facing a stacked roster ahead of him, Murphy encouraged Van Meter to transfer somewhere he could get playing time. Van Meter, whose family had just moved to Richmond, Va., chose VCU.

Playing on the left side of the infield, Van Meter immediately impressed the Rams’ coaching staff with his raw talent and athleticism.

“Just ridiculous tools,” VCU head coach Shawn Stiffler, who was an assistant coach under Paul Keyes at the time, said. “And he was ridiculously eager to learn the game, he just hadn’t played enough up to that point.”

Coupled with a high baseline of athleticism was Van Meter’s drive to improve himself.

“If you know Joey, whatever he’s doing at that time, he’s all in. He completely immerses himself into it,” Stiffler said. “He would bring wiffle balls on the road and have his roommate pull a mattress off the bed, set it up, and use it as an L screen to throw him batting practice in his room.”

“Each year I got more confident, and my numbers got better and better,” Van Meter said. “I trained very hard with Tim Kontos, the strength and conditioning guy, he’s one of the best in the business, and added some pounds to my frame and got stronger.”

The Rams had losing seasons in 2008 and 2009, Van Meter’s redshirt freshman and sophomore seasons, a rarity during the Keyes-Stiffler era of VCU baseball. But in 2010, VCU got back to its winning ways and Van Meter broke out as one of the best hitters in the country.

He hit .434, the third-highest single-season batting average in school history, and collected 108 hits, which still stands as a Colonial Athletic Association record. His 76 RBIs are also the most ever by a Ram in a single season.

The 2010 CAA Tournament at Brooks Field in Wilmington, N.C., still holds one of Van Meter’s best baseball memories. The third-seeded Rams had advanced to the championship game through the winner’s bracket, but faced the home team, UNCW, and a hostile crowd in a winner-take-all game for the title.

Van Meter had been hitting the ball hard all day, but couldn’t find a hole. As the game stretched into the top of the 12th inning still tied at 5-5, he came to the plate with a runner on base after Richard Gonzalez drew a leadoff walk.

“I got an 0-1 hanging slider, and I got a good piece of it,” Van Meter said. “It just kept going and going, and barely clipped the wall, and that pretty much sealed the deal and put us in the Regional tournament.”

In addition to securing VCU a spot in the NCAA Tournament, Van Meter’s home run also earned him CAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player honors. A few weeks later, after a prolific three-year career as a VCU hitter and infielder, Van Meter was drafted in the 21st round by the Texas Rangers.

As a pitcher.

Wait, what?

After his sophomore season, Van Meter had gone to play wooden bat summer ball with the Battle Creek Bombers of the Northwoods League. When the Bombers ran low on pitchers, Van Meter stepped onto the mound. And when his first few pitches touched the mid-90s on the radar gun, he got the attention of scouts.

“When he came back [to VCU], we started talking about pitching,” Stiffler said. “The pitching was just, at best, kind of going so-so. His numbers weren’t great, but he had a great arm. He was learning how to do it. But the scouts loved him because he threw hard, and had a really athletic arm. So anytime we were going to pitch him, scouts would want to know and would show up.”

Van Meter played in five seasons for MLB-affiliated minor league teams, mostly with the Rangers, but also some with the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles, getting as high as AA.

“I’ve played in so many cities that I can’t even count,” Van Meter laughed. “A lot of times it was those small towns with not a lot to do that you have a good time with your teammates and build that camaraderie, those are the most fun summers.”

Some of the memories that stand out to Van Meter the most are the antics of a minor league bullpen in a town like Hickory, N.C.

“The best group of guys that I played with had to have been in the Texas Rangers system,” Van Meter said. “We just liked to goof around; we’d do skits in between innings for the fans. I feel like we were one of the originators of all of this goofiness in baseball.”

Between anthem stand-offs and skits of NASCAR pit stops between half innings, you can be assured of entertainment during a game with Joe Van Meter. But while there is the fun and light-hearted nature of minor league baseball games, there’s also the brutal business reality of playing the game in the minors, especially as a pitcher.

I’ve gotten released too many times to count,” Van Meter said. “Some people take that as ‘I’m done, I’m finished,’ or they use that as fuel. That’s what I’ve done. Any kind of failure, any kind of curveball this game or life has thrown me, I’ve tried to use that as fuel moving forward.”

After being released by the Frederick Keys, an Orioles affiliate, in 2014, Van Meter played independent ball in both the American Association and Atlantic League for teams like the Sioux Falls Canaries and the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs until 2019.

A big reason he’s stuck around in the game, long past the point many guys give up on the dream of being a major leaguer, is that his stuff is still good enough to put up quality numbers. 

With a conscious effort towards durability and longevity, his fastball sits in the low 90s (as opposed to the 95-97 range that initially attracted interest from scouts), but has late movement that keeps batters on their toes. Combined with a change-up and an ever-improving curveball, there is still a demand for his services.

Mechanically, he compares himself to Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax, pitchers who got their body low to get leverage on the ball. The technique is something he honed with the help of fellow VCU alum Justin Orenduff, a first round draft pick in 2004.

“He had some arm issues, so he teaches this methodology of using your hips, being deceptive, kind of looking like Sandy Koufax, very old school,” Van Meter explains. “He’s done an incredible job and helped me when I needed help in ’13, and he kind of revamped my career.”

Through connections, word of mouth, and a willingness to experience new things, the second half of Van Meter’s career has featured baseball leagues around the world, and some of the most prestigious competitions in the global game.

In the winter of 2017-18, Van Meter threw for the Perth Heat of the Australian Baseball League, posting a 3-0 record in seven appearances. Perth is in the remote southwestern coast of the Australian continent, with vast deserts separating it from larger cities like Sydney and Brisbane.

“It was incredible,” Van Meter said. “Whenever I wasn’t playing, in the mornings I would try to be a tourist and just venture out and see some really untapped areas.”

A connection in Australia led to an opportunity to coach baseball for three weeks in Dubai, a challenge considering most Emirati kids are used to playing cricket.

“I still stay in touch with a few of the kids that I worked with out there and they’re all doing well,” Van Meter said. “That’s another place where baseball is getting bigger.”

For the next two winters, after playing independent ball during the summer, Van Meter competed in the Mexican Pacific Winter League, and this past winter he threw for the Aguilas Cibaenas in the Dominican Winter League. 

Outside of Major League Baseball, the Dominican league is considered the best league in the world. Van Meter’s teammates on the Aguilas Cibaenas, who won the league championship, included international stars Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera, Juan Lagares, and a host of other major leaguers.

“I mean, all these guys are in the major leagues and they embraced like one of their own,” Van Meter said. “I was one of the only American white guys on the team and they made me feel at home, and I’m really looking forward to getting back down to the D.R. this winter.”

Baseball fans in the Caribbean are extremely passionate, and the game is a way of life in the Dominican Republic, where baseball is the ticket off the island for many who grow up in poverty.

“When you score a run, it’s like a big party in the dugout and the stands, everyone’s going nuts,” Van Meter said. “You hear these loud horns and pots and pans, it’s a lot of fun.”

By virtue of their Dominican Winter League championship, the Aguilas Cibaenas earned a spot in the Caribbean World Series, a competition between the best teams in Latin America and the most prestigious club competition in the world outside of the World Series.

The Aguilas Cibaenas won their sixth total Caribbean World Series this winter, giving Van Meter his second championship ring in the matter of months, and another incredible memory and achievement in his baseball career.

“If you win the championship, like we did, the whole street comes out and they’ll throw these guys a parade. I saw a guy hanging out of the sunroof, they’re just going nuts,” Van Meter said. “Santiago, the city where I played, that’s got to be one of the coolest baseball towns in the world.”

“He may not be throwing 95 that will get him back to the big leagues, but that guy knows how to pitch at a high, high level, and can win anywhere,” Stiffler said. “He’s really mastered his skill, and I was so proud to watch him pitch on the live stream [of the Caribbean World Series]. Literally one of the proudest moments I’ve had.”

Like anybody that steps on a baseball field, Joe Van Meter still holds out hope that one day he’ll play in Major League Baseball. But for now, he’s enjoying every second of his baseball journey across the globe, with a short-term goal of one day competing in Japan or South Korea, one of the few parts of the world he hasn’t played in.

“That's what I've learned along my career, is you’ve got to fail. You have to go through some adversity and be comfortable not doing well, and learn from your mistakes,” Van Meter said. “You know, it's all about your attitude. And that's something my dad has always taught me, it’s how you respond to certain things. And I think that's one of the main reasons why I'm still fighting this fight every night at seven o'clock.”