Star Little League pitcher, family look back on banner year, ahead to 2022 season and beyond

When Gavin Weir says his goal is to play Major League Baseball, you don’t argue.

Rather, you root deep down inside that it’s true. That everything he demonstrated while tearing through the Little League World Series last summer was real.

That maybe this 12-year-old kid from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, really is – that.

A superstar.

Then, you remember that you’re from Sioux Falls, and that’s not what we do. We temper expectation. We dream like anybody else. We aspire. We just don’t say it.

Still, that slider, coming out of his left hand, way out there somewhere near the first base line, and dropping in fast and furious across the plate in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

That slider.

And this kid.

“Nasty,” the announcers said as struck out batter after batter on the way to the semifinals.

“He is human dominance,” after he threw a no-hitter.

“What a superstar,” when he hit a three-run home run to seal a victory.

Hyperbole is de rigueur for sports broadcasting.

But still. This is not what we’re used to.

*****

Gavin Weir burns through a plate of chicken strips and tater tots at Let It Fly, the sports-themed bar and restaurant in Sioux Falls.

Ronnie Weir – Gavin’s father, coach and mentor – talks about the family’s baseball history and the philosophy of 5tool Sports, the youth program he founded and runs.

In the moment, there’s an underlying correlation between the result of big-time sports aspiration and its roots. The room is a gallery of sports television, a place where every nuance of our nation’s obsession is played out in real time.

The relatively new Let It Fly is co-owned by Mike Miller, the Mitchell native who morphed from small-town South Dakota kid to tattooed and styled NBA star.

In the background of Miller’s rise to the top level of basketball fame, there were always mumblings about what he’d become. It wasn’t always clear what that was supposed to mean, but likely it was some combination of urban wardrobe, envy and the cocksure nature of the NBA.

But this much is certain, you don’t play 17 seasons in the NBA, win the rookie of the year and two championships if you don’t have the skill to back up whatever perceived swagger made the folks back home feel left out.

That is part of professional sports. The building up, the stardom and the inevitable tearing down.

None of that seems possible with Gavin Weir. He is, after all, 12 years old and a seventh grader at Harrisburg Middle School. It seems ludicrous to place the possibility of professional sports on someone with so far to go. Yet, that’s how it works. Without aspiration there is rarely realization.

Ronnie Weir knows this.

The five tools of his baseball system reflect the primary skills of the sport: hitting, hitting for power, running, fielding and throwing. But there are parallel skills in his program for life, how to be a good person – humility, gratitude and hard work among them.

Ronnie Weir’s three sons are all baseball players, as was he and his father before. The boys have talent, of that there is no doubt. But to play in college and beyond, that depends.

Right now, the glare is on Gavin.

“We have no doubt that he can do that,” Ronnie said. “But how do we get better every day, every week. As a player and as a person. They go hand in hand.”

*****

The Weirs are not boisterous people.

Ronnie speaks in measured tones. It is confidence not arrogance, with regular deference to God.

Gavin is quiet, glancing around the room. His answers are short and to the point. In television interviews, he carries the demeanor of a ball player winding down another long season on the road, not the kid who drew congratulations from around the world.

Which is noteworthy given that football megastar Patrick Mahomes, quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, tweeted out fire emojis in Gavin’s honor during the LLWS.

Legendary Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski sent autographed swag.

Minnesota Twins radio announcer and former World Series star Dan Gladden interviewed Gavin during a game.

Not to mention the dozens and dozens of letters and emails, people stopping in stores and at school, the banquets and the media that goes with it.

There is an occasional subdued laugh or a curled grin from under that ball cap when a subject strikes the mark. But all-in-all, Gavin is about as level-headed, smart and polite a pre-teen as you’re going to meet.

“You have to take it all in, but you can’t take it for granted,” he said of the adulation. “Be smart. Be humble. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Gavin does admit that stepping onto the field in Williamsport left an impression.

“It’s nerve-wracking,” he said. “But, you know, just don’t change anything you do. Don’t worry about what other people change. You gotta go out there and be you.”

*****

The team traveled with a rotating collection of parents who put their lives on hold to follow a group of boys across the country to play baseball.

“Chaos is a pretty good word to use to describe it,” said Mike Gorsett, manager of the Sioux Falls all-star team that became South Dakota to the world.

Gorsett is also the president of Sioux Falls Little League, which will play its sixth season this year.

Little League is separate from Sioux Empire Baseball Association, commonly called SEBA, the organization that most kids in the city grow up playing in. There are some variations on the game, including the size of the fields. Only teams that come through the Little League system can qualify for the tournament that culminates in Williamsport.

Rapid City plays under the Little League banner, as does Sioux City.

But it wasn’t until 2017 that a league was formed in Sioux Falls.

Which is not to say there weren’t accomplished baseball players in this area. There were. So good in fact, that the Sioux Falls team made it to Williamsport that first year before losing two games.

So when the all-stars from the league were gathered for the 2021 run, there was no lack of expectations.

“The very first practice, we pulled all our parents together and said we know we are good, that we have a team that has the opportunity to go there,” said Gorsett, who coaches two teams during the regular season, is the vice president and minority owner of the Sioux Falls Skyforce in the NBA G-League and owns Dauby’s Sports Center with his wife.

It was also a compressed timeline. From the time the team was chosen to the end of the road was about two months.

“It was quite an incredible transformation getting to know these families,” Ronnie Weir said. “We all become close. An incredible bonding experience.”

*****

There are a lot of innings and uncertainty between Sioux Falls and Williamsport.

On the way to Indianapolis for regionals – where the team would win three games and lose one to qualify for the World Series – Gorsett said there was no predicting the quality of the other teams.

“It’s still a pipe dream, right?” he said. “If we would have gone 0 and 2, I would have told you that wasn’t a surprise.”

It was 31 days before the team returned to Sioux Falls. It was a strain on families, particularly because the COVID precautions prevented much interaction.

“The parents, we all have jobs,” Gorsett said. “It was a tough type of deal trying to plan. I might see you in four days. I might see you in 30.”

Still, they averaged around 100 fans at every game as families dropped in and out of the caravan.

That much travel is expensive.

The team had some corporate sponsorship. And they raised about $50,000 on top of that. But parents, in large measure, picked up the rest, which could top more than $10,000. That’s obviously a greater burden for some families than others.

“It’s not from the standpoint of sports being the end-all-be-all,” Gorsett said. “But when that team continued to move on, you want your kid to be a part of it, and you want to do what it takes to make that run.”

*****

Baseball is a team sport.

Each pitch, each play can seem isolated, performed by individuals. But there is a herky-jerky chemistry to the game.

No one player can perfect his role. There are mistakes, errors and plain bad luck.

It takes a team to overcome individual mistakes. Each member – literally – backs up someone else with every hit, every throw.

Gavin always praises his team. There were 14 kids on the journey through the state tournament and the regionals, eventually landing on the center court of baseball, with a worldwide audience and all the pressure that come with it.

So when the cameras came on and attention focused on the unhittable left-hander from South Dakota, there was no concern that one player was outshining another. It was the result of their collective success.

“What he did was beyond special,” Gorsett said. “He’s a good kid. Every single one of the interviews, he figured out a way to work the rest of the kids into it.”

*****

Gavin Weir left a wake of eye-popping statistics through August.

“Talking to people out there, they put him as one of the top two or three kids that has ever played the World Series,” Gorsett said.

There is a hint of in-the-moment hyperbole in that assessment. The numbers, however, support the thesis.

Gavin the pitcher didn’t allow a hit in the regional or World Series. Not one hit. The only thing that separated him from a perfect game in a win over California was one walk.

Over two games in Williamsport, he pitched 11 2/3 innings, no hits and three walks.

Gavin the hitter had a batting average of .385 in 14 plate appearances, including the game-winning three-run home run against Oregon.

“It was cool,” Gavin said of the homer. “That feeling in your stomach, the butterflies. It’s an amazing feeling that you might not feel again. I finally did it. Something I wanted to do for a while.”

There’s no crying in baseball but losing hurts.

The Sioux Falls team ran out of hits in the semifinals and lost to Michigan. Then to Hawaii in the third-place game.

The improbable run was over, but memories last forever.

“For me, it was more than just another game because I always wanted to go there,” Gavin said. “It’s the experience with friends and family there. It’s amazing to go there and get to do what you do.”

The dugout wasn’t too bad either.

“As a coach, to share a field with these kids and watch them live out their dream,” Gorsett said, “It was insane.”

*****

It starts over for 2022.

Little League has about 200 players at different age groups, but growth in Sioux Falls is limited by field time. There simply aren’t enough baseball diamonds to go around. New fields are coming online at the Sanford Sports Complex in the near future, which will add some opportunities and allow for expansion.

But for now, kids can play until they’re 12, and then they move into other leagues, whether that’s SEBA and American Legion or one of the traveling clubs. South Dakota doesn’t have sanctioned high school baseball, but there are school-affiliated club teams.

Gavin has aged out of Little League. There will be no repeat performance. He and his brothers already are practicing baseball at an indoor facility in Corson. They also play basketball.

When spring rolls around, they’ll start gearing up for another season of travel team baseball on 5tools Redemption, with their dad as tutor and coach.

Drew Weir is a freshman at Harrisburg High School, where he will play with the club team before Redemption’s travel schedule begins. Just 15, he already is getting attention from college scouts. Like Gavin, he’s an accomplished pitcher and shortstop. He also plays catcher.

The intersection of coach and dad is precarious. Encouraging the promise of talent on one side and preparing for reality on the other.

There’s no prescription for that. Just hard work.

“You gotta have dreams that you want to go after,” Ronnie said of his sons’ baseball aspirations. “Then, you have to execute a plan. You gotta have to plan to go get it. And what does that take? I think a lot of families try to push their kids into that. And I’m a coach, so I’ll push my kids as far as they want to go. There are things they need to learn and disciplines they need to learn, and some of it they gotta learn the hard way.”

With every new season, there is a dream.

For Gavin Weir, 12 years old and gleaming with possibility, it’s an old one.

Ask him what he wants to do. He’ll look you in the eye and without a blink or hesitation:

“I want to play in the MLB. That’s my goal.”

Maybe it was just one crazy, lucky month, and you’ll never hear about Gavin Weir again.

They’re just kids playing a game, after all. If it wasn’t for the TV cameras and advertising contracts and cable networks, it would still be just that.

But this kid.

This family.

And that slider.

It’s hard not to dream.