Almost every young baseball player imagines coming through in a ninth-inning situation in a big game while playing wiffle ball. Senior pitcher Thomas Shurtleff is no different.
“I got my start probably around three years old,” Shurtleff said of his earliest baseball memories, “playing wiffle ball in my backyard.”
Those dreams came true at Penn, on the back end of what Shurtleff describes as a “very bad” and “terrible” freshman year. Shurtleff, a Massachusetts native, joined the Quakers after playing high school baseball for Medfield. The coaching staff, mainly pitching coach Ronnie Glenn, was a big part of Shurtleff’s decision to come to University City.
“My pitching coach in high school went here, and he’s been a big mentor figure in my life as soon as I met him my sophomore year,” Shurtleff said. “I wanted to follow his path and what he had done here.”
Glenn, a 2015 College graduate, is in part to thank for the Quakers’ Ivy League championship run in 2023, something his Penn teams never accomplished. Had Glenn not been the role model he later became for Shurtleff, or had he gone elsewhere for college, one of the greatest comebacks in Penn baseball history may have never happened.
In the second game of the final series of the 2023 season, Shurtleff entered a game led 6-3 by Columbia, with home-field advantage and the Ivy League tournament on the line.
“I pitched the eighth and the ninth, and we were down by a good bit,” Shurtleff recalled. “I brought some intensity to the game, and was getting super fired up after I got some outs for us. We ended up coming back in the ninth and winning that game, and that was one of the wins that helped us clinch home-field advantage for the title run that year.”
Shurtleff would come up big once again in the tournament, securing the victory against Princeton in the championship game with two shutout innings, securing his spot as a key bullpen arm in the years to come. As a sophomore, his role expanded, pitching nearly twice as many innings as he did in his first year, while cutting his ERA from 10.91 to 4.13. A year later, Shurtleff again would take on more responsibilities when he shifted into a higher-leverage role out of the bullpen. He would tie for the lead in saves for the Ivy League and would again significantly improve his ERA.
Coming into this season, Shurtleff had the fortunate opportunity to pitch in the Cape Cod Baseball League, the premier summer league for college students looking to stay sharp while away from school. Growing up in Massachusetts, the CCBL was a staple of Shurtleff’s childhood.
“My family has been going to the Cape my whole life,” Shurtleff said. “It was always something we always talked about as a pie in the sky, dreaming about it. To actually have the opportunity to do it was sick. I love all the guys there, the coaches, and everyone. It was just top notch.”
Not only was the experience a dream come true for Shurtleff, but it also allowed him to develop from a shorter-length reliever into a longer reliever and starter this year. After gaining more experience with higher pitch counts over the summer, Shurtleff returned to Penn ready to expand his role once again.
“When I came back here in the fall, I talked to [pitching] coach [Josh] Schwartz a decent amount about how he anticipated the season going for me, and what we wanted to work towards,” Shurtleff said. “We both agreed that pitching more innings would be better for me and, hopefully, better for the team. We worked towards that this offseason, and I came back with the intent to keep building the pitch count in January and February.”
Despite the plan for an expanded role with more innings, Penn still did not anticipate Shurtleff playing as big a role on this year’s pitching staff as he has so far. Injuries to the rotation forced Coach John Yurkow’s hand, which has played out relatively smoothly for the Quakers.
“In the fall, the plan was to keep him in the bullpen, and then we had a couple injuries in the fall, and we decided he was one of our better arm[s], so it doesn’t really make sense to just let him throw a couple innings on the weekend,” Yurkow said. “It almost felt like you were shortchanging the team, so we started to lengthen him out.”
Shurtleff has proven Yurkow right thus far, with formidable performances both as a starter and a long reliever. He has played a pivotal role in wins over Dartmouth and Columbia, while also throwing eight and a third strong innings in a loss against Yale. More than his performance on the field, though, Shurtleff is an excellent leader of this year’s Quaker pitching staff.
“He’s kind of been through it all since he’s been here,” Yurkow said. “He’s pitched in relief; we’ve used him as a starter. He’s just a really resilient kid. He does so much for the pitching staff, and I think all the guys on the team look up to him. He just has a great work ethic; he has a plan, and he follows it to a T.”
The senior leadership Shurtleff brings to the team will surely be missed next season after he graduates this upcoming May, but Shurtleff’s baseball journey isn’t over yet.
“I’m looking to keep playing,” Shurtleff said of his plans after he graduates. “I’m preparing for whatever opportunities come next, whether that’s pro ball or something else, but I’d like to keep playing, and I have my eyes on pro ball.”
Before that, though, Shurtleff and the Quakers are looking to bookend what will be remembered as a great Penn career with another Ivy League championship.
