Podcast: The Show’s Steve Lomasney talks WWBA World Championship

Steve Lomasney (right) coached the Red Sox Scout Team at the WWBA World Championship. (Courtesy photo)

Steve Lomasney recently returned from the Perfect Game WWBA World Championship, where he coached the Red Sox Scout Team.

The former Red Sox draft pick and Peabody High baseball legend led a collection of New England’s top high school prospects in the Class of 2022 to the Round of 16 in the most prestigious showcase event of the year in Jupiter, Fla. He joined the New England Baseball Journal Podcast to talk about his experience coaching New England’s top prospects.

“I have my own program (The Show Baseball and Softball Academy), but I didn’t want to make it about that,” Lomasney said. “I wanted to be all-inclusive to anyone who wanted to send players who were talented enough to belong on that roster, whether it’s guys from the Nor’Easters, Nokona, Seacoast, NH Prospects or Antonelli Baseball. We had a player from all of those programs.”

Lomasney shared his impressions of all of the New England standouts who contributed to the Red Sox Scout Team’s successful run. He was particularly impressed with Medfield High (Mass.) infielder Jack Goodman.

“He was awesome,” Lomasney said. “I don’t want to pick favorites, but he was one of mine. He’s just a competitor who gives you everything he has at a high level. No fastball is too hard for him, no moment is too big. He didn’t get a hit in every at-bat, but he was in every at-bat.”

Pinkerton Academy (N.H.) left-handed pitcher Liam Doyle parlayed a successful performance at the WWBA Championship into a scholarship offer from Coastal Carolina, which he accepted within a week of returning from Jupiter.

“Going down there, he had a lot on the table from a few other schools,” Lomasney said. “But with his performance and the stuff he showed in his left-handed arm, he ended up where he belongs. He’s very, very good. I look at a player’s eyes, and I could tell that kid wanted the ball.”

Lomasney was a star at Peabody High (Mass.) before getting drafted by the hometown Red So in the fifth round of the 1995 MLB Draft. Five years later, Baseball America ranked him as the top prospect in Boston’s farm system.

In 2001, while playing for the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox, Lomasney was struck in the right eye by a line drive during batting practice. He suffered a choroidal rupture and continues to suffer from vision impairment.

“As a catcher, you don’t have infield or outfield responsibility during batting practice,” Lomasney said. “Every day, I’d go out and cover a bag. That day, I took second base and a feed took me off the bag. For the previous years I’d done it, I followed the rule that if there’s a bad throw, I stayed behind the screen. Don’t try to catch anything outside the screen. This time, I stepped outside the screen, a line drive came up the middle and hit me in the right eye.”

After leaving professional baseball, Lomasney offered individual lessons as a coach with the Steve Lomasney Baseball Academy in Peabody. He then joined the staff as a coach at Legends Baseball in Middleton in 2008.

In 2011, Lomasney started The Show Baseball and Softball Academy with a 10,000-square-foot facility and seven full-size practice areas in South Lawrence, Mass. The Show also operates out of the New Balance Training Facility in Salem, N.H., and the Granite Fields indoor facility in Kingston, N.H. Lomasney just recently expanded his brand by opening another facility in his hometown of Peabody.

“It’s my original facility reincarnated with a little more height and size,” Lomasney said. “My brand is expanding geographically. I want to be as unbiased as possible when we travel to these tournaments. Having a North Shore facility in Peabody will be really big for expansion.”

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