This article was originally published in the Arcadia Weekly.
Mikey Easter wants to play professional baseball one day for his favorite club, the New York Yankees. For now, he’s content tearing it up at the high school level for Arcadia.
Easter started playing when he was five years old. His whole family, from his grandparents to his parents, are all huge baseball fans. Easter recalls getting baseball toys when he was little.
“I would practice swinging in the living room with my dad when I was two,” Easter said.
Easter started out playing tee ball, then little league and travel ball. He still plays club baseball for CBA Marucci. Easter plays first base and catcher.
“I like both, but I prefer catcher,” Easter said. “I feel like I’m in every play and I have my pitcher’s back at all times. I feel like I’m more of a leader behind the plate than I am at first.”
Easter said he has a decent arm, but his best strengths as a catcher are framing and calming his pitcher down in tough situations.
This year Easter was one of Arcadia’s top hitters, as a sophomore. His batting average of .389 was the third highest on the team and he had the highest on base percentage at .516. Easter had 32 RBIs, 8 doubles, 3 triples and scored 18 runs.
Although Arcadia fell short in the playoffs, Easter said the season as a whole still went really well.
“We got one of our goals done, winning the Pacific League. We hadn’t won that since 2011. Bringing the Pacific League title back to Arcadia was a big deal for us,” Easter said. “I’ll always remember dogpiling on the field after clinching the league title.”
Easter is already in contact with a couple NCAA Division I schools, but he has not committed to one yet. He plans to stay on the West Coast for college, but isn’t tied to Southern California. Easter said he wants to major in business or sports management in college, although his ultimate goal is to go pro.
“It’s pretty far away, but I want to play pro ball. That’s been my goal ever since I was little,” Easter said. “Hopefully for the Yankees. My grandpa is a huge Yankees fan and I used to watch a lot of games with him when I was little and my parents were at work. That’s why they’re my team.”
When he’s not playing baseball, Easter enjoys hanging out with his friends or squeezing in a round of golf.
Although the season is still several months away, Easter is already preparing for it.
“This summer I’ve been going to the gym a lot, hitting the weights, hopefully hit more doubles and home runs next season,” Easter said. “I want to help the team win any way we can.”