When Dunn came to bat Saturday in the eighth inning at Lake County, the Dayton Dragons trailed 2-1 and had lost their first two games of the season. Two men were on base and there were two outs. The pressure was on, but Dunn knew how to handle it. Keep calm and analyze the situation.
He noticed the pitcher’s reliance on his fastball. And on the first pitch, Dunn hit one for a three-run homer to spark the Dragons (1-2) to a 7-2 victory.
“My thought process was just trying to get the guy in from second to be able to tie the game with a line drive somewhere up the middle, and it turned out to be three-run homer that gave us the lead,” Dunn said. “So it was pretty cool.”
Maybe Dunn, 24, would be further along in baseball if he had given up the other sports, but he never wanted to specialize.
“I don’t think I would be the athlete or the competitor that I am without playing the four sports that I did in high school,” he said.
Dragons manager Bryan LaHair played baseball and basketball in high school and sees what being a four-sport athlete did for Dunn.
“It just shows your athleticism,” LaHair said. “Football brings that toughness. Basketball can bring that endurance. Baseball has to bring that precision. For him to be as good as he was at all four, tells you what kind of player he is and what kind of player he might be.”
Dunn played baseball at an all-MAC level at Western Michigan and was named in 2020 as the second-best athlete in college baseball by Baseball America. They must have seen him in high school.
With his dad Bill Dunn as the head football coach, he played quarterback for four seasons and led the team to unbeaten regular seasons as a junior and senior. He scored touchdowns and kicked extra points and a few field goals to become the state’s No. 2 career scoring leader with 824 points. He set school basketball records for 51 points in a game and 1,541 points in a career. He won three state titles in the 300 hurdles, one in the 110 hurdles and led Saugatuck to consecutive team titles his sophomore and junior seasons.
The only stop sign in Dunn’s career happened early in the spring of his senior year. While practicing for the long jump, his left foot slipped when he planted for take off resulting in a torn ACL in his left knee. Fortunately it wasn’t the most severe of ACL injuries and he was ready for the start of his freshman baseball season at Western Michigan the next spring.
The Reds drafted Dunn in the 15th round in 2021. Last summer at Daytona in Low-A, he was limited to 33 games because of injuries. But he performed well with a .290 batting average, a .468 on-base percentage, four homers, 16 RBIs and 18 stolen bases.
“He’s a grinder,” LaHair said. “He’s coachable, incredibly fast, very good defender, has power. There’s nothing really not to like, and hopefully he’ll find a good amount of opportunity to showcase those skills.”
Manager’s outlook: LaHair is back for his second season and 20 players who wore a Dragons uniform are with him.
“It just increases their confidence tenfold,” he said. “They had confidence last year, but now they know what to expect. It’s exciting for them just as much as is for me to be back because we’re more aware of what Dayton is and what it brings.”
Sellout streak: When the Dragons play their home opener at 7:05 p.m. Tuesday against Great Lakes, there might not be a sellout. As of Monday there were still about 200 tickets for sale. The Dragons’ sellout streak, the longest in North American professional sports history, stands at 1,441 games.
TUESDAY’S GAME
Great Lakes at Dayton, 7:05 p.m., 980
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