A league of his own

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Javier Alvarez
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  A few hours after Gregory Eissens made his Alaska Baseball League pitching debut, he changed his white and blue Anchorage Glacier Pilots uniform for the Air Force ABUs that brought him to Alaska.

By day, he pitches for the Glacier Pilots; by night, he’s an aircraft electrical and environmental systems Airman with the 732d Aircraft Mobility Squadron at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

People who knew Greg growing up knew it was only a matter of time before he would reach prominence in the sport.

“I’ve been playing baseball for what feels like my whole life,” said Senior Airman Eissens.

At four years old, the tee was the vessel which brought the marriage of bat and ball, the seemingly supersonic clink signaling an assault on the bases.

“I was quick [when I was younger],” Eissens said. “I could throw hard, and my bat was on fire. I couldn’t miss a ball.”

Baseball came naturally to Eissens, to whom incoming fastballs seemed to make their approach in slow-motion, a Ty Cobb sixth sense.

Eissens’ father practiced with him. And as the years went on, dad replaced the tee completely.

“It was a good way to bond with my dad,” he said.

Greg remembers his father hitting pop flies as he fought the sun’s glare for the catch at his North Carolina home.

That relationship would continue until Eissens’ sophomore year of high school, when everything changed.

It’s been seven years since Eissens’ mother was diagnosed with cancer.

“I ended up having to take her to a lot of treatments,” Eissens said. “That just kind of took over.”

Overwhelmed by the stress of his mother’s diagnosis, the sport lost its significance.

Eissens credits his faith in God with having a significant impact in dealing with the stress of his mother’s diagnosis. Not just in getting through tough times, he admits to having had opportunities not available to others.

“[God] is probably my biggest motivation,” Eissens said.

A year after graduating high school, Eissens joined the Air Force. Although he stopped playing baseball, he knew it was just a matter of time before he returned to the game.

During a deployment to Qatar, Eissens made plans for his return.

“I just worked out and got strong,” he said. “You can’t really get big and expect all the explosiveness to come back, so I had to retrain myself.”

Eissens’ persistence led him to contact the general manager of the Anchorage Glacier Pilots.

“He didn’t get back to me right away,” Eissens said. “So I came to one of the games and approached the dugout. … He said ‘just come and work out with us, and we’ll see if we can put you in the games.’”

In the middle of the baseball diamond at Mulcahy Baseball Stadium, atop a white rubber slab on a mound of earth stood Eissens – a month after arriving at JBER and nearly five years from his last high school game.

He took to the pitcher’s mound in mid-July, where the opponents he played against were unlike any he’s faced in the past.

“It’s different pitching against these guys,” Eissens said. “They know what’s coming. They’re not amateurs. They’re at a different level than I experienced in high school.”

The sixth sense Eissens once had is gone.

“Trying to hit a 97 mile-per-hour fastball after five years of not playing is probably not going to happen,” Eissens said. “But I can work as hard as I can and try to get my eyes adjusted and focus.”

Eissens returned to baseball with unprecedented commitment.

“I come here at noon for workouts,” he said. “Batting practice starts at 4:30; games are at 7. I go to work at about 11 p.m. and work until 7 a.m. I go to sleep for five hours and do it all over again. … I can’t not be happy in getting the opportunity to do it.”

Eissens’ mom has gone through three rounds of chemotherapy since her diagnosis. She prepares to start a new round as the ABL playoffs kick off. Because of her condition, she is unable to travel, though Eissens says his family could not be happier at everything he’s accomplished.

Greg hopes to one day play in the MLB, though he knows he has a lot of training before he reaches that level.