Danny Black Joins ‘From Phenom To The Farm:’ Episode 56

Image credit: Mike Janes / Four Seam Images

Danny Black has chosen to make a life out of the game of baseball.

The thirty-three year old is currently coaching in the Marlins organization, following a playing career that saw him reach a College World Series with Oklahoma as an amateur, and then Triple-A as a professional—a career that Black nearly walked away from as a senior in high school. 

Talented but undersized, Black’s time in the Northern California high school ranks did little to attract big-time college recruiters, or really any recruiters at all. As graduation neared, and with that came the end of an up and down high school career, the game he’d always played out of love didn’t seem to do as much for him as it had in the past.   

“After my senior year I almost stopped playing,” said Black. “The fun part of it had started to wear off, which bothered me a lot because I couldn’t understand that feeling that I was having.”

Black credits a stint playing travel ball in the summer following his senior year, playing for fun and nothing else, to revive a love of the game in him enough to give baseball one last shot. At the behest of Ryan Giacomini, one of his travel ball teammates who had just finished his redshirt year at Feather River College in Quincy, California, Black chose to give baseball another shot, joining Giacomini in at the tiny junior college.

Talk about your all-time great calls, because after two years of developing his skills and maturing physically, Black went from a guy ready to leave baseball behind to a junior college star being courted by major Division 1 programs. However, Black doesn’t just look back on his time at Feather River as a stepping stone to, but a pivotal building block of his life. His prowess as a player improved, but under the tutelage of head coach Terry Baumgartner, Black learned the importance of work ethic and how to develop team chemistry. 

“Time together,” said Black, when asked about what factors bond a team. “Failure, success, you have to spend the time together and you have to get through it like you’re a family.”

From Quincy (population: 1,706), Black made the jump to Norman (population:124,086), but didn’t let more populated surroundings and difficult Big 12 pitching stop him from continuing his ascent through baseball. He hit .320 in his sole season for the Sooners, helping the club reach the 2010 College World Serie–the final rendition held at Rosenblatt Stadium. Black’s goal upon signing with Oklahoma had been reaching Omaha, and despite not getting the result he’d hoped for (the Sooners finished 1-2), the experience as a whole wowed him.

“Just the fact that you’ve watched it on TV for so long, it’s like a big league game,” said Black. “And all of a sudden you’re actually on that field and looking at it from this completely different perspective—you’re on ESPN, walking around and people know your name.”

He jumped into pro ball as a 14th round pick of the Marlins, and hit all the typical hallmarks of a run in professional baseball–long bus rides, a cramped apartment with twice as many residents as bedrooms, and the constant challenge to stay one step ahead of professional pitchers. Challenging, but Black reveled in the challenge.

“It was beautiful though–you look at it and you think yeah it’s brutal, but the weeding out process, we build relationships because we were going through it together,” said Black.

 

He’d eventually stall out at the higher levels of the minors, hindered by a wrist injury and inconsistency at the plate. The Marlins thought highly enough of Black’s baseball IQ and temperament to offer him a coaching position in the organization. Years after taking a leap of faith on a junior college in the California mountains, Black has found that lessons learned from that Feather River coaching staff have applied at every level of baseball he’s reached since–something he now tries to pass onto his own players.

“The patience, and the ability to get the grind out of us,” said Black of his junior college coaches. “They were able to instill the feeling that this grind, this work, this effort that we were giving was going somewhere.”

On the latest episode of ‘From Phenom to the Farm’ former Marlins farmhand and current coach in the organization Danny Black joins to discuss his career in baseball. He talks playing in the final CWS at Rosenblatt Stadium, being teammates with Christian Yelich in the minor leagues, and how junior college baseball changed his life.