His father’s stories inspired Daniel Burke on the diamond
Senior moments in 2020
DANIEL BURKE
“I’ve played all my life,” said Burke. “Started in Little League. I honestly can’t remember a time that I wasn’t playing. My dad got me to play at first because he used to play, and he wanted his kids to play.
“I’ve stuck with it because I just love it,” he said. “It’s a thinking-man’s game. For football, if you run hard and hit hard, then you’ll have success, but with baseball, you can be the strongest guy in the world and still suck at it.”
When asked what he likes most about playing baseball for Clinton, Burke said it’s been the coaching staff.
“It’s the best coaching staff I’ve ever had, honestly,” he said. “The kids on the team all welcomed me there, even though I’m a homeschooled kid. I started homeschooling in the fourth grade and am still homeschooled to this day, but they’ve really welcomed me. Coach Stacy is a great dude and a great coach. He’s very knowledgeable. I feel like in the past two years, I’ve matured a lot as a person and grown as a man and that’s helped out a lot. He’s set a really good example.”
When asked if he had a mentor, Burke said he didn’t and he “mostly stuck with his family and friends.” He said he does watch professional baseball, but mostly just roots for whichever team is doing well. Still, Burke said that baseball has given him “a little bit of structure.”
“It’s fun. It’s given me something to work towards,” he said.
Burke said his father’s stories inspired him to pick up the sport initially.
“My dad has always told me stories of him playing baseball and his cousins all getting together and playing. I grew up on those stories.”
When asked how COVID has affected his life as a baseball player, Burke said it’s been “inconvenient, to say the least.”
“We’re just hoping to get to have our season this year,” he said. “I know how bad the seniors last year wanted that season, and it just got ripped away. They won’t be able to get it back, either.
“I wasn’t super close to them, but they were just hard-working dudes. They didn’t deserve that.”
Burke gave praise to two of the lower-classmen.
“I’d like to brag on two of my teammates, Harrison Shelton and Matthew Pelligio,” he said. “They’ve worked hard in the gym and you can see the improvement not only in how strong they’ve become, but their attitude toward everything as well.”
