Zac Thornton's path to becoming a pitching sensation for the New York Mets has been anything but conventional. Once a lanky left-hander with a fastball in the 78-80 mph range, his journey took him from Minnesota to Lawrence, Kansas, before his junior year of high school when his father accepted a track coaching position at the University of Kansas.
Unrefined and buried on the varsity team as a junior, Thornton's senior season was wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving him without a single scholarship offer. This led him to Barton Community College, near his home, to continue his baseball career.
"He had something of a loose arm — good mover, good athlete, good family, good kid, all those things, and we kind of took a chance on him," Barton pitching coach Brett McBride told Sports+ in a recent interview. McBride's assessment reflects the belief that fostered Thornton's development at the junior college level. His unlikely ascent has hardly seemed surreal to those who coached him along the way.