Gameday Magazine May

Johannesburg Roots, Tokyo Aspirations

Kieran Lovegrove’s quest to become an Olympian

Lynchburg, Va. – Kieran Lovegrove tries to picture it. “I really can’t even fathom the idea of sixty thousand or so in a stadium,” Lovegrove said, a Hillcats reliever for the second straight season. While it might be challenging for Lovegrove to picture the scene, the opportunity for him to pitch in the 2020 Sum- mer Games in Tokyo has become an increasingly real possibility. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1994, the first ball Lovegrove picked up was a cricket ball, and the first bat he swung was a paddle. However, when Lovegrove was five-years- old, the family relocated to Southern Cali- fornia, where his mother, Kelly, is from. At that point, it made sense to make the transition to baseball. Lovegrove fell in love with baseball in America and continued to excel at the game as he grew older. His father, Keith, who was born in South Africa and lived there for much of his adult life, would mention the possibility to eran as no more than a hypothetical, as baseball at the time had been removed from the list of Olympic completion. His dad has played an integral role in Lovegrove’s development. “He’s been my number one supporter since day one,” said Lovegrove. “He’s been there every step of the way.” While Kieran was growing up in Cali- fornia, Keith found a job that would al- Kieran of play- ing at the inter- national level. At the time, it seemed to Ki-

low him to work from home, so that he would be able to make it to all of his son’s games. That included road trips to Arizona and cross-country flights to tournaments in North Carolina. Lovegrove’s first exposure to baseball on an international stage came at the World Baseball Classic in 2009. South Africa played Mexico, and Lovegrove got a chance to watch players from his country of birth participate in interna- tional competition. “They didn’t really know who I was at the time, or realize that I was born in South Africa,” recalls Lovegrove, but it planted the seed that his father’s proposition wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Lovegrove would dominate the high school ranks at Mission Viejo, earn- ing a third-round selection from the Cleveland Indians in 2012. Following his first professional season, Loveg- rove got his opportunity to play on the international stage. Team South Africa was competing in rove, the highlight was meeting the South African natives on the team, and realizing what baseball meant to them. “The guys on the team more or less play baseball as a hobby, very few play professionally, but they have a passion for the game that either matches or exceeds that of the American play- ers,” said Lovegrove. “Getting to meet them and spend time with them is pretty cool.” a tournament in Jupiter, Florida, and Lovegrove competed against the likes of Spain, France, and Israel. For Loveg-

“Lovegrove fell in love with baseball in America”