After more than 20 years of playing baseball, Tommy Windt has hung up the spikes.
Windt, an Orland Park resident and Sandburg graduate, started playing T-ball at age 2 and went on to play youth league and travel baseball before taking the field in high school for the Eagles, then in college at South Suburban and Southeast Missouri State.
This fall, he plans on attending the pharmacy school at UIC, but playing baseball is off the radar.
“It’s definitely been an adjustment,” Windt said about life without baseball. “But I’ll get used to it.”
His senior year at SEMO had some thrills.
In the NCAA Baseball Championship regionals in June, the Redhawks faced Arkansas, the tournament’s No. 5 seed, Arkansas, in front of a crowd of 10,778 at Baum-Walker Stadium in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The place was rocking with Razorbacks fans, but SEMO pulled off the 6-3 stunner and Windt found himself in the middle of the celebration.
“It was unreal,” he said. “Playing in front of those fans on their whole field like that. The atmosphere was great. It was one of the most electrifying atmospheres I have ever been a part of.”
The victory sent SEMO to the regionals finals for the first time in program history.
Windt got the call to pitch in relief in the fourth inning of the regional final against Kansas State with his team down 7-0. He shut down the K-State offense for 3 2/3 innings, but the SEMO offense only mustered a pair of runs in the 7-2 setback.
Windt enjoyed his favorite moment on a baseball field in 2022, when he came on in relief and fired a pair of innings — allowing one run and striking out two Ole Miss hitters — in a 13-3 victory over the Rebels in front of 8,854 at Swayze Field in Oxford, Mississippi.
“I always wanted to play there, and I always wanted to pitch there,” he said. “I finally got to fulfill that dream. It was a night game, and I looked around and it was pretty crowded, but I locked in and the adrenaline was pumping through me.”
In high school, he was in the starting rotation for Sandburg’s 2018 team that finished fourth in the state in Class 4A. Windt got the start in the state semifinals, a 7-3 loss to Plainfield North.
Now, he will get adjusted to life without baseball.
“It went by way too quick,” Windt said of his baseball career. “It was fun, though. I don’t regret anything.”
He is looking to turn the page to a new chapter as he works toward being a pharmacist.
“I always wanted to help people and I always had a passion for medicine,” Windt said. “I always liked learning about the body at the molecular level.”