In the Dugout with Brandon Contreras

In the Dugout with Brandon Contreras

By Micah Rodriguez 

Uncommitted Rising Redshirt Junior, Highest Batting Average in the CCL

On April 24, Brandon Contreras suited up for his fortieth game of the season with the Ventura College Pirates. Contreras finished the day 1-5, a modest game by his standards. Yet beyond the results, what mattered to Contreras were the two milestones he achieved. Before opening day, he wrote two goals on a piece of paper and stamped it on his wall: Stay healthy and play in all 40 games. 

Modest goals for many, but for Contreras, they encompassed the daily battles he fought for years that taught him about failure, patience, perseverance, and above all, himself.  

Appearing in all 40 games was the culmination of a voyage that began after a concussion ended his football career; he didn't have a single offer coming out of high school, and had two seasons marred by injuries at Ventura College. Contreras spent the past three years fighting to simply stay on the field. It was a difficult journey, but ultimately one that taught him to fall in love with the process rather than the results. 

For the majority of his high school career, Contreras believed he was a better player on the gridiron than he was on the diamond. A four-year letter winner at Adolfo Camarillo High School, Contreras was a running back, slot receiver, safety, kick returner, and punt returner. Coaches could barely keep him off the field. 

During his senior year, in a game against Newbury Park High School, Contreras was back returning the opening kickoff.

"I'm running, I get tripped up a bit, and I'm starting to fall," he said. "One of my buddies, Ryan Gillum, was coming down, and it ended up being crown on crown. I remember just, boom, snapping my head back, and it knocked me out."

For 45 minutes, Contreras had no feeling in any extremities. 

"I thought I was paralyzed [in] the moment," Contreras said. 

It was his fourth career concussion. His football career forcefully came to an abrupt end. 

"I just had a perspective change," Contreras continued. "I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. I think God puts everything in your life for a certain reason."

With a career on the football field off the table, Contreras pivoted full-time to baseball. 

However, in the summer following his senior year, when Contreras realized he may have a career ahead of him between the chalked lines, he had no offers. No opportunities.

"I thought I was okay enough to keep playing at the next level," Contreras said. "Towards the end of the summer, I thought I wanted to play Division I baseball, but it was too late."

It was a difficult time mentally, and Contreras internally thought it might be time to focus on a career in the real world. 

"I was in a pretty deep place mentally," he said. "I thought, 'You know what, maybe I'm done with sports. I'm ready for the real world.'" 

But then David Soliz, a friend of Contreras's father from their days together at Rio Mesa High School, was named the head coach of the baseball program at Ventura College. Contreras finally had an opportunity, and after extensive conversations with his dad, he decided to take it.

"My dad was big on just like, 'You're going to work the rest of your life. So just get a part-time job, and just play baseball as long as you can,'" Contreras said. "My dad always tells me he would kill to go back and keep playing. And you know, if you're given the opportunity to keep playing, why not do that? Don't live with regrets."

Upon arriving at Ventura his freshman fall, Contreras quickly found out that college baseball was very different from high school baseball.

"I didn't really have any idea what college baseball would be like," Contreras continued. "I thought I would just go play [at junior college] and see what happens, but I was in for a rude awakening."

Opposing players and teammates were older, bigger, and stronger. Removed from a high school schedule, more time could be spent working on your craft.

"You go from high school, where you sit for eight hours of the day in a classroom, and you don't move," Contreras said. "And then after that, you're expected to show up thirty minutes before a game, quickly throw on your pants, run down to the field, and go play. Then I go to junior college, and I have a couple of classes a week in person. I had so much time where I could waste it, and not use the time given."

Armed with a new schedule, the first two weeks of his freshman fall were difficult. 

"I struggled [to] understand what to do or [how] to fill that time," Contreras said.

But after watching his teammates, who had prior years of experience under their belts, Contreras began to make the most of his open afternoons. 

"I had an 8 a.m. psychology class," Contreras said. "I got done with my class, and now I have time to go lift, hit, throw, run, and get tons of cage work in before practice even starts. And then after that, I still have more time to do [my] homework and everything else."

Once settled into a routine, Contreras' understanding of the game improved significantly.

"I was an average baseball player in high school," he said. "I'd go up there, see the ball, and try to hit it. Now, I understand pitch sequencing and how pitchers want to tunnel pitches to certain hitters. [I understand] dirtball reads, how to correctly base run, steal in certain counts, [and] understanding players' movement patterns and tendencies."

During this learning curve, Contreras dealt with an ulnar nerve issue in his elbow. With every throw, the nerve slid in and out of place. After a limited throwing schedule in the fall, Contreras was given the green light for the spring.

But in an early-season game against LA Mission College, when running out a flyball to right field, Contreras tweaked his right hamstring. 

"I never had any hamstring issues in my life," Contreras said. "I've always been the dude [whose] like, 'I'm going to push through this.'"

A few weeks later, he re-strained his left hamstring. After another few weeks off, he pulled his left hamstring. Finally, after a couple more weeks off, he was back in the lineup playing Oxnard College at Pirate Park. 

"I hit a single up the middle, and I pulled my right [hamstring] three steps out of the box," Contreras said. "I'm trying to hobble to first and pulled my [left hamstring]. I pulled both at the same time."

Little did Contreras know that was only the beginning of his hamstring issues. He secured a medical redshirt after only playing in 12 games. 

"I'm dealing with these recurring hamstring issues, and it's one of the darkest points of my life," Contreras continued. "I would look forward to baseball; that's all I knew. Baseball this, baseball that. When it's stripped of you, what do you do?"

Contreras was at a crossroads: hang it up or fully commit to loving the process. He chose the latter. 

"You really have to love something to fail seven out of ten times and continue to do it, right?" Contreras said. "I went into [junior college] with the [idea] that succeeding three out of ten times was what I wanted." 

But his mindset changed during his never-ending rehab.

"I was the dude who would put the weight on my chest, where it's like, 'I have to get five hits, and if I don't [I failed]," Contreras said. 

Previously, Contreras spent his years being laser-focused on the results. Such a tunnel-vision mindset did not allow for a broader perspective or appreciation of the progress he made.

"I wanted to succeed, succeed, succeed, versus understanding and falling in love with the process of going to the cage and working on something for two hours," Contreras continued. "I'd work on sliders for an hour, and then I go roll over on a slider [in game], but I [had] just hit 200 sliders to the back of the net. Falling in love with the process is what helped me so much. Just [falling] in love with the game."

The process led Contreras to look into every possible avenue for why his hamstrings couldn't stay healthy.

"I'm going to physical therapy, I'm doing research on my phone and on my computer, looking up articles on Reddit and [X], I didn't know why I kept re-pulling my hamstrings," Contreras said. "Talking to so many different people, different doctors, I'd heard so many different things. I would never come to the same conclusion."

That summer, in a workout with the Conejo Oaks, he pulled both hamstrings again. He decided to take six weeks completely off. 

Contreras arrived back on campus the following year with his hamstrings feeling the best they had in six months. But then, early in the spring, Contreras pulled his groin on a double. While rehabbing, his hamstrings flared up, then his groin. He only played in 15 games. 

Coach Aaron Levin – an assistant with the Oaks – got a job in the Northwoods League, and Contreras followed him out to Rochester, Minnesota. His physical therapists with the Rochester Honkers gave Contreras the best answer he had heard to why his hamstrings kept flaring up.

"I thought, 'Oh, you [have] abs, you have a strong core,'" Contreras said. "No, come to find out, I had a bad pelvic tilt. My core wasn't functioning and firing properly. My glutes were really weak. I was already at a yellow light. When I'm running, I'm going straight to red. I had this constant stress already on my hamstrings."

That summer, Contreras slowly worked back into game shape. He started DH'ing. Then he played three innings. Then five, then seven, then nine. By the midway point in the summer, no hamstring problems.

Coming in his third season with the Pirates, Contreras knew it was go time, having already used a medical redshirt year. He wrote down two things on a piece of paper and put it on his wall.

'Stay healthy and play in all 40 games,' the paper read. 

"Those were [the] two things I wanted to focus on," Contreras continued. "Obviously, the results came, but I was so process-oriented. Every day, I would do 20 minutes of mobility, go to the gym, do a primer [lift], get to the field, do more mobility, and band work where it looks like I'm doing glute exercises. Coming in as an 18-year-old freshman, I never would have done that."

Contreras played in all 40 games. With his sweet left-handed swing, he hit .287 with two home runs and tied the program record with 19 doubles. 

"Playing 40 games was one of the most relieving things I've ever done," Contreras said. "Two years of full rehab. 12 games my freshman year and 15 my sophomore year. Knowing all that work and process that [I] stayed a part of, I saw the results. I put my head down and grinded for two years, and 40 games came out of it."

Through the first three weeks of summer ball with the Oaks, coached by Soliz, a major mentor, Contreras is leading the California Collegiate League with a .517 average. He is 15-29 with eight RBIs and two walks, good for a 1.100 OPS. He has only struck out three times.

Contreras attributes a lot of his success to the lessons he learned at Ventura College.

"Junior college was the best thing that ever happened to me," Contreras said. "I couldn't ask for anything better."

With his junior college eligibility spent, Contreras eagerly awaits an opportunity at the next level.

"I'll be 22 next year, obviously an older guy," Contreras said. "I'm just trying to keep my head down and put out results that coaches can't ignore. I want a shot somewhere, wherever it is. I want to come in, earn a spot, and find a home."