One of those mistakes of youth, which many of us have made, nearly cost Keaton Anthony his dream of playing professional baseball.

Fortunately, life found a way to hand out a little punishment while not completely killing his dream.

That punishment left Anthony thinking that his dream may in fact be dead.

That is, until a call came from the Philadelphia Phillies.

As a redshirt sophomore at the University of Iowa, Anthony was being watched by a number of major league teams.

In his two seasons with the Hawkeyes, Anthony hit .373 with 23 home runs and 93 RBIs, and was the Big 10 Freshman of the Year.

Anthony had been told that he could hear his name called as early as the third round by some teams, and as late as the seventh round by others.

Then came that mistake.

Anthony was one of numerous Iowa and Iowa State student-athletes who were caught up in a gambling sting. He, along with three other players, were immediately suspended and missed the final 17 games of the season as Iowa made its sprint to the Big 10 Tournament Final and the Terre Haute Regional for the College World Series. The draft ended without Anthony hearing his name called.

Being undrafted and ineligible to play college ball until May of 2024, things seemed to have fallen apart for Anthony, who never bet on Iowa games.

However, NCAA regulations forbid student-athletes from betting on any sport that it sanctions, even if they bet on the sport at the professional level and not the college level.

Anthony’s case was not as serious as others who were charged with underage gambling and identity theft, but was serious enough to put his dream in doubt.

Finally, a week after the draft ended, Anthony signed a minor league contract with the Phillies to resurrect his dream.

“It seemed like forever, and I really didn’t know what I was going to do at that point,” admits Anthony. “It’s obviously a blessing to be who I am now. I just want to keep getting better and better every day and hopefully, make an impact on the big league team someday.”

Anthony has shown that the Phillies’ confidence in him was well placed. In just his third season of professional baseball, Anthony has reached Triple-A and is playing well.

There has been just one game this season where Anthony has not gotten on base or produced a run, and that came back on April 6 with Reading. In the six games he does not have a hit, he has either walked or driven in a run on a sacrifice fly in five of them, and he’s yet to go back-to-back games without a hit.

The 24-year-old had hits in his last four games with Reading before being promoted, and has hit in 11 straight with Lehigh Valley, including getting a hit Sunday when he was activated after a week on the IL.

Anthony has played exclusively at first base in the minors, but started as an outfielder and pitcher at Iowa. The impressive part is that he won a Minor League Gold Glove as a first baseman in 2024.

“I had worked at first base a little, but I didn’t play there very much (at Iowa),” said Anthony.

“When I signed, I wasn’t very good over there, so I made getting better a priority coming into last season. I wanted to be more confident over there, so I did a lot of work on that during the offseason just to be better and more comfortable over there.”

There are two athletic endeavors that Anthony misses.

First, he gave up playing basketball after his sophomore year in high school to focus on baseball. Second, he misses the pitching that he got to do at Iowa, despite not being one of the team’s featured pitchers.

“I miss basketball because I really did enjoy playing it, but this is working out well,” said Anthony with a smile. “I have let coaches know that I used to pitch and if they need to put me in, I’m ready. Especially at A-ball when Greg Brodzinski was my manager. I used to ask him all the time. He’d just say ‘I can’t put you out there. You’d try to throw 100 and wind up getting hurt.’”

CATCH THE BALL, THROW THE BALL… Lehigh Valley won its first four games of the second half in Buffalo before it committed eight errors in Saturday’s game to set a franchise record for errors in a game. Four of the defensive miscues were made by Rodolfo Castro, who now has 14 on the season. Josh Breaux made his first two errors of the season, while Weston Wilson and Oscar Mercado both made one each. Four were fielding errors, and four were throwing errors. The miscues accounted for seven unearned runs in a 13-3 loss.

THREE AND THREE… The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders are in town to open the month of June. The rivals will play three games at Coca-Cola Park before racing north to play the final three games of the series at PNC Field in Moosic. From there, the Pigs head to Syracuse for six games.

A WATCHFUL EYE… Phillies prospects Andrew Painter and Eduardo Tait, an 18-year-old catcher at Clearwater, were both selected to play in the 2025 All-Star Futures Game in Atlanta. Painter, who is working his way back from Tommy John surgery, will not pitch in the game as the Phillies continue to keep a close eye on his workload. Instead, they want him to have complete rest during the all-star break.

NEVER FORGOTTEN... Marty Ondrovic, a long time PIAA football, baseball, and basketball official and former clubhouse assistant for the IronPigs, passed away recently at the age of 92. Known around Coca-Cola Park as “Uncle Marty,” Ondrovic took pride in his job of rubbing down the baseballs and assisting the umpires before games. He always had a smile, and loved to chat and share some of his classic baseball stories. He left his job with the IronPigs a few years ago, but would make an occasional visit to the ballpark. He was recently chosen for induction to the District 11 Hall of Fame.