By Pete Cava
PBR Indiana Correspondent 

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Tommy Hunter trudged into the visitors clubhouse at Victory Field in Indianapolis on April 16, sweating like he’d just run a mid-July marathon.  “I’m dead,” he proclaimed dramatically to several amused Columbus Clippers teammates.  Then the 6-foot-3, 250-pound right-handed pitcher sprawled on his back across the carpeted floor, arms outstretched and eyes to the heavens. 

Hunter had just finished a gruelling workout session, part of his injury rehabilitation program with the Triple-A International League club.  The 29-year-old Indianapolis native signed with the Cleveland Indians on February 12 after a physically challenging offseason.  The Indians expect him to join their bullpen by month’s end, or by early May at the latest.   

“I'm going to take it day by day,” Hunter said after getting up off the floor, toweling off and changing T-shirts.  “I think each outing is going to build on the last one.  If that continues to happen, maybe sooner than later.” 

Hunter’s bulk belies his agility.  His movements on the mound are fluid, something he attributes to his judo training as a youngster.  “I think it's got a lot to do with it,” he said.  “From a very young age, we worked on having a center of balance.  Just being able to control your body, and making sure your body does what it’s supposed to do.”  

With Tommy’s older sister Megan also involved in judo, the Hunter family spanned the country traveling to competitions.  “We went all over the place,” he said.  “We'd sometimes have to split up, because her tournaments were in different places than mine were.  My mom would go with my sister, and my dad and I would go.” 

Megan earned a black belt, and in 1996 she trained with the U.S. Olympic judo team prior to the Atlanta Games.  Tommy was on a similar path after winning a pair of Junior Olympic national titles.  “It (the Olympics) was always a thought,” he said, “but then baseball took the most important role in my childhood.  It was always my favorite sport.” 

Growing up, Hunter rooted for Atlanta and watched Braves games on TBS.  “That's when A.J. [Andruw Jones] was coming up, Jonesy [Chipper Jones] was coming up, [John] Smoltz, [Tom] Glavine, [Greg] Maddux, John Rocker, Fred McGriff, the Crime Dog …  We can go on and on about those teams back in the day.” 

In the fall of 2001 Hunter entered Cathedral High School.  “I was a pretty good-sized kid,” he said.  “They saw me when I came in, and the first thing Cathedral thinks about is football.  They didn't even know I played baseball.”  

Hunter was played linebacker for the Irish that autumn.  When he tried out for baseball the following spring, Cathedral coach Rich Andriole recognized the big kid’s real talent.  “I was a freshman, and he started me from Day One,” said Tommy.  “I probably had THE greatest Indiana high school baseball coach ever in Rich.  He definitely knows what he's doing.” 

The first time Hunter toed the rubber at Victory Field was in 2004, when Cathedral met Scecina Memorial for the City Championships.  The first hitter he faced drilled Hunter’s first delivery down the left-field line and off the top of the wall.  “It didn't go out,” Tommy recalled.  “He got a triple.  And that was my start at Victory Field.  It was terrible.”  The Irish went on to win on the ten-run rule, 14-2. 

In 2005, his senior year, Hunter went 9-4 with a 1.28 earned run average (Cathedral scored just four runs in his four losses).  He struck out 110 batters in 74 and one-third innings.  He could swing a bat, too, hitting .423 with 15 homers and 40 runs batted in.  

That June, Tampa Bay drafted Hunter in the 18^th round.  He passed up a professional career to accept a scholarship from the University of Alabama.  In 2006 he set a school freshman record with ten victories.  That summer he pitched for a U.S. collegiate team, winning a gold medal at the World University Games Championship in Havana. 

In 2007 the Texas Rangers selected Hunter with their supplemental first-round pick (54^th overall).  This time he signed, and made his major league debut a year later.  Hunter notched his first big-league win on July 3, 2009 – his 23^rd birthday.  

Hunter’s 13-4 record in 2010 helped Texas win the American League pennant.  In the World Series against San Francisco, he was the starting and losing pitcher in Game 4 (the Giants clinched the Series in five games).  

The Rangers dealt Hunter to Baltimore in July 2011, and by 2013 he made the transition from starter to reliever.  Last July, Baltimore traded him to the Chicago Cubs.  “He’ll help the Cubs,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter told reporters.  “Tommy never has a bad day.  Very infectious personality, and he can pitch.” 

Hunter became a free agent after the season and underwent surgery.  “I had a tear in my groin last year,” he explained, “and I had a couple of core muscles put back together.  This offseason was a little different than normal.  I was flying back and forth to Dr. William Myers out in Philadelphia, getting worked on here and there.  I had a couple of unfortunate setbacks during the rehab process.” 

Hunter said he tore the two lower muscles from his abdominal wall.  “They didn't rip completely off,” he said.  “There's a sheath that goes around the ball inside your socket.  Your groin, your adductors are all attached to that sheath, and I ripped that.”  

Banking on his complete recovery, Cleveland signed Hunter and assigned him to Columbus for injury rehab.  Prior to the Clippers’ four-game series at Victory Field, he made a pair of starts that lasted one inning, as planned.  

Against Indianapolis on April 15 he was the third of five Columbus pitchers, striking out a batter and giving up a hit in one inning.  “I felt pretty good,” he said.  “It's definitely progressing.  I don't want to sound overly optimistic about it, or sound like I'm completely healthy, but it's coming along.  I definitely have a lot of work to do.  I want to get to that point where I can basically prove to everybody that I can still do it.”           

Hunter and his wife Ellen live in a Cleveland suburb.  “We have a new son, a six-and-half-month old boy named Henry,” said Tommy.  “He's a treat, man.”  

Around professional baseball, Hunter said he keeps bumping into fellow Hoosiers like pitchers Lance Lynn (Cardinals) and Drew Storen (Blue Jays), former teammates on the Indiana Bulls travel squad.  “There's guys that I didn't play with that I'm starting to find out about, like Gruber,” said Tommy, referring to Columbus teammate Jarrett Grube, a Fort Wayne native who pitched for DeKalb High School and Vincennes University.  

“There's a lot of boys from Indiana that are playing the game of baseball right now,” Hunter continued.  “And hats off!  These guys work.  We're indoors a lot more than other people, being in the Midwest.  It goes to show you that even Indiana boys can figure out how to throw a baseball, hit a baseball.”  

Pete Cava is the author of Indiana-Born Major League Baseball Players: A Biographical Dictionary, 1871-2014,  now available from McFarland Publishers.