Swamp Bats profiles: Rob Coman

Rob Coman at batting practice.

Catcher Rob Coman is one fourth of the Swamp Bats’ “Cavalier Quartet” (pardon the alliterative attempt at expressive expertise). Along with Alec Bettinger, Connor Jones and, Jack Roberts, Rob joined the team after Virginia’s trip to the College World Series. 

Taking the summer of wasn’t a consideration and for him and his teammates. “Our goal after playing through the College World Series is to continue playing at a high level and help this team any way we can.”

In his first game for the Swamp Bats, Coman hit a home run. He doesn’t dwell. “To hit a home run in my first at bat was cool but you just got to move on, and play the rest of the season”. 

A year ago, Coman played summer ball in the Northwoods League, for the Wisconsin Rafters. His goal is the same, always. “Consistency, plain and simple. That’s Virginia baseball, playing the game the right way, that’s what you’re trying to do out here. Play the game hard, that’s how you get better. I wholeheartedly believe that.”

He’s been the beneficiary of good coaching his whole life. Coman was raised in Florida, where his father, Robert, has been a teaching golf pro for years. ” We live near Jupiter, where the Cardinals have spring training so the guys have come out.”

You can make the connection. Ballplayers play golf; they meet a golf pro with a baseball-loving son. “I was very fortunate to go to spring training,” a lot, one imagines. From the time he was 12 to his senior year of high school, Coman was a frequent spring training visitor of the Cardinals. That includes the 2006 and 2011 World Series champion teams. “Just to meet them and be around them was a wonderful experience; I knew the entire lineup personally”.  But he’s not a name-dropper. The most important things he learned were not baseball mechanics, but deportment.  As he told Mary Thurwatcher of the Palm Beach Post  in 2012 “You won’t see them coming into the dugout throwing helmets.”