It all started years ago, well before Sal Frelick and Cody Morissette and Mason Pelio and their classmates even showed up as freshmen at Boston College. Even as 16-year-olds, this group had a very specific vision.

“I think my recruiting class, my junior year in high school, we actually named our group chat ‘Omaha 2021.’ That’s always been our mentality,” said Frelick, now a third-year sophomore center fielder and a second-team preseason All-American. “I think when we set our goals so high, especially attainable ones, it’s just fun to try to chase them. We’re doing that one game at a time, but it’s always in the back of our head. Since I’ve been a freshman here, that’s just kind of been the switch we’ve seen in the culture here.”

Of course, every Division I baseball player dreams of Omaha, but this was a particularly bold ambition for a BC program that hadn’t reached the College World Series since 1967. When Frelick, Morissette, Pelio, Peter Burns and the other members of BC’s 2018 recruiting class first committed, BC was still playing at Shea Field, the worst facility in Power Five baseball, with a chain-link fence, a few rows of metal bleachers, and a playing surface that doubled as a parking lot for football games on fall Saturdays. Back then, the Brighton Field complex and the Pete Frates center were still just a dream. Aside from the Californian Pelio, this class was composed mostly of native New Englanders who could have left for warmer climates and better facilities and a richer college baseball tradition.

But Frelick (from Lexington, Mass.), Morissette (Exeter, N.H.), Burns (Reading, Mass.), Emmet Sheehan (Darien, Conn.) and Ramon Jimenez (Chicopee, Mass.) saw the potential of a BC program coming off a surprising 2016 run to super regionals. They believed in BC coach Mike Gambino’s vision and passion. They believed they could be a part of something special, and lead a New England college baseball team to Omaha for the first time in decades.

“I was such a big advocate for keeping local talent local. I wanted to play in New England because I was born and raised here,” Frelick said. “I think a lot of times, even when I was growing up in high school, kids older than me were going down south, out west to play college baseball. I was always like, ‘Man, we breed such good baseball talent here, let’s keep it local.’ I was so fired up, Cody Morissette, basically my whole recruiting class was roughly New England, with some Connecticut kids. I think it’s just a brand of baseball that we like to play. BC baseball offered that kind of grittiness, that fast-paced baseball that I love. I think it’s New England brand, so I was all for staying here.”

And Frelick epitomizes the New England brand, in so many ways. He became something of a folk hero during his prep days as a football, hockey and baseball star, earning the Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year award in football after throwing 52 touchdown passes as a senior. Whenever I tweet about Frelick, responses like this flood in from Boston-area media people and sports fans:

Incredible he was the 2017 Massachusetts Gatorade Player of the Year for Football. Catholic Memorial football coach John DiBiaso called him one of the best athletes he’s ever coached against.

Frelick is as fun a baseball player to watch as there is in the country. https://t.co/ORGQXPYDFs

— Matt Feld (@mattyfeld612) February 28, 2021

Outstanding athlete and a great kid - @BCBirdBall

— Dan Roche (@RochieWBZ) February 28, 2021

Frelick said he committed to play baseball at BC when he was a high school freshman, but by the time he was a junior he was getting serious interest from college football programs, who viewed him as a Julian Edelman-style playmaker out of the slot. He said he was actually committed to play football and baseball at BC “for maybe a week,” but then he took a step back and decided baseball is the sport he has the best chance to play the longest, so it made sense to concentrate on the diamond.

He injured his knee in his final game of summer ball before the fall of his freshman year at BC, resulting in the first of two knee surgeries in the span of less than a year. Being sidelined for fall ball was tough for him, but he rehabbed quickly and got himself ready to play when the season started in 2019. And Frelick hit the ground running, putting up a .367/.447/.513 line with four homers and 18 steals in 21 tries over the course of 39 exhilarating games.

And then he hurt his knee again chasing down a ball in center field, and he had surgery again in May to report partially torn cartilage. I remember chatting with him in the stands at the ACC tournament that year, with his leg propped up on the seat in front of him and his crutches by his side. He was friendly and gregarious as always, but he was struggling beneath the calm façade.

“I remember I was actually here in Durham watching the ACC tournament on crutches, and I was just biting my lip, I was so angry I couldn’t go out there and play,” Frelick said. “I think the first couple weeks after that second surgery were a really big mental toll on me. I was in a dark place, it was tough watching my team go out and compete and I couldn’t go out and help them in any way. And then as I got into the summer, I said, ‘All right, let’s really pick this thing up, let’s make sure we come out of this not just 100 percent but 150 percent, because we’re trying to get faster and stronger here, not just back to where you were.’ So I hit a really rigorous program that summer and came back to school that fall maintaining that program. I don’t think my body’s ever felt as good as it does now.”

Speed is such a huge part of Frelick’s game, so it was thrilling to see him showing top-of-the-charts speed this weekend at Duke, proving that the knee injuries are well behind him. On one “routine” ground ball to second base, he blazed up the line in 3.91 seconds from the left side, causing all the scouts in the stands to compare their stopwatches and make sure they had it right (everyone around me had him in the low 3.9s). The Duke second baseman had to rush that throw and still didn’t get it to first base in time. He beat out another grounder to second base later in the game (initially scored as a hit, then changed to an error that was clearly forced by Frelick’s speed), in addition to a pair of crisp line-drive singles to center and right. Last year, when Frelick hit .241 in the shortened season, he clearly wasn’t all the way back from that knee surgery. Now he’s back to being a 5-foot-9, 175-pound stick of dynamite.

“I mean, he wasn’t there last year. Guys were getting 4.2s down the line, but now he’s a consistent 3.8, 3.9 down the line,” Gambino said. “In some ways, you talk about what Trea Turner did, I remember telling our infielders when Trea was here \[at NC State\], ‘Every ground ball is basically a do or die. Like, every one you gotta go get and get rid of.’ And that’s what it feels like when Sal’s hitting.”

Frelick’s 80 speed on the 20-80 scale could be worth 50 or 100 points of batting average over the course of the season, and it has helped him hit .429/.484/.607 through six games this year. But he also drives the ball to all parts of the field, regularly squaring up hard line-drive contact. On Saturday, he hit a ball off the opposite-field Blue Monster so hard that even with his speed, he was held to a single. And he showed the ability to turn on the ball with authority in Sunday’s series finale, ripping a two-run homer to right in the seventh inning, effectively putting the game away and helping BC clinch the series.

“My freshman year, I felt like the biggest part of my game was putting the ball in play. I really wanted to develop into that collision-contact hitter, with some power,” Frelick said. “I don’t think it was ever a change in, ‘I gotta put on some weight, I gotta get stronger.’ It was just a change in my approach, saying, ‘Let’s drive some baseballs here, not just flick them the other way.’ I’ve known I’ve had it in me for a while now, but I think it’s starting to emerge, a little bit last year and now this year.”

With speed, power, baserunning acumen, premium range and superb instincts in center field, Frelick can change the game in so many different ways. There might not be a more exciting player to watch in all of college baseball. And his makeup is just as special as his athleticism. Frelick just has a very rare magnetism about him, on and off the field.

“He very rarely has a bad at-bat. And he also is that guy everybody just knows in a big spot, he’s gonna get it done. He just is. He’s just ‘that kid,’” Gambino said. “My wife was in a grocery store like six months ago and had a BC baseball sweatshirt on. And some kid was like, ‘Oh, do you know Sal Frelick?’ He just went to a neighboring high school. The other guys just call him, ‘That kid.’ Like, he’s just ‘that kid.’ And part of it is the complete confidence, but with complete humility; he’s that good of a kid. Everybody has a story about awesome stuff he’s done \[on the field or in the rink\], but everybody has a story about how good a kid he is too. It’s just that real.”

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