Few athletes get the distinct honor of representing their country in sport. Even fewer of those athletes are from Division III colleges. Yet on Sept. 26, Freddy Mosier ’23 took the mound for Team Great Britain in the European Baseball Championship, helping the British to an 11-10 victory over Italy.
Mosier, who was born to a British mother in London, where he lived for seven years, still holds a British passport and ties to his British roots, despite spending most of his life in the United States. He first played on the British national team at age 16.
Mosier was proud to have the opportunity to represent his home country after missing out on the World Baseball Classic last March.
“It’s a great honor,” Mosier said. “I honestly went into it thinking I wouldn’t pitch at all because our team’s stacked.”
“Stacked” is an understatement: The team’s roster has three active minor leaguers, including Harry Ford, the 12th overall pick in the 2021 Major League Baseball draft by the Seattle Mariners. Mosier emphasized that playing with such high caliber talent changed the way he thought about top level pitch sequencing.
“I had a lot of older guys who [had] more experience as my teammates,” Mosier said. “I got the start against Team Italy, and the morning before the game I watched all the videos of past Italian games with one of the pitchers on the team who played for the Marlins and he was telling me how to sequence guys and read swings, stuff I never knew how to do… I was grateful those guys even talked to me.”
In addition to accessing the other players’ wealth of knowledge, Mosier highlighted the chemistry and welcoming nature of the team. Unlike his experience at Middlebury, Mosier did not begin the season having established relationships with his teammates. But the team got to know each other through a week of training camp in Prague and the actual week of tournament play, coming together at the end of the tournament when the team won Britain’s third ever silver medal — an experience Mosier compared to a full year of college compressed into two weeks.
The scale of play in Europe was also staunchly different from the view of the Green Mountains at Forbes Field, as the thousands of spectators were a step up from the dozens who attend games at Middlebury. Team Great Britain played through three cities, with jumbotrons, cheerleaders and DJs heightening the experience for players and spectators alike.
The standard Middlebury baseball season is roughly 30 to 40 games of play. Under such circumstances, a team can normally afford to lose a game here and there. In tournament play, however, every game counts.. The Brits finished the week 5-1, improving to a second place finish from seventh last year. Mosier pitched three and two-thirds innings during the tournament while giving up one earned run, six hits, and one walk. He also notched two strikeouts.
Up next, Mosier is looking to continue his baseball career in Germany playing semi-pro baseball until Oct. 21 and then move to Australia to join up with another semi-pro league near Brisbane. He enjoyed his experience competing at the European Baseball Championship and reflected proudly on his contribution to the team.
“It was fun to be a part of, I felt like I was a part of those wins. I closed out the game against Germany which was cool,” Mosier added. “Our team did great, we just got beat [in] the last game. Spain hit the ball better than us, and that happens. That’s baseball, it’s hard to show it in a tournament style. We left it all out on the field.”
Ryan Heinzerling '24 (he/him/his) is one of the Sports Editors!
He's studying English and Political Science. Outside of his studies, Ryan is also a member of the Middlebury College Ski Patrol, has a radio show at WRMC, and spent this previous summer working as a Corporate Partners Intern at the New York Mets!
