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NHL Winter Classic: Bruins’ David Pastrnak might be the unlikeliest baseball star

BOSTON — Trent Frederic stopped playing baseball in 10th grade. It was the year the St. Louis native had to leave both his team and home behind when he relocated to Plymouth, Mich., to play for the National Team Development Program.

Had hockey not been the 24-year-old’s passion, Frederic was in a good position to extend his baseball career. He played for former major league catcher Mike Matheny. Frederic himself was a good catcher. When it was his turn at the plate, the righty-swinging Frederic had enough power to put balls over the fence. Several of his teammates played Division 1 college baseball.

Frederic, then, would probably be front and center among the Bruins to hold their own at Fenway Park in the summer. The Green Monster, which is supposedly 310 feet away from home plate, is not that much farther than the fences at Cooperstown that Frederic used to clear during summertime tournaments.

As for who would be the biggest fish out of water with either bat or glove in hand, an informal poll among the Bruins landed on one player in particular.

“I’ll throw Pasta under the bus,” said Connor Clifton.

“I think Pasta’s a better hockey player for sure,” Matt Grzelcyk said in agreement. “I don’t know how much baseball they play in Czechia. It’s funny to see him swing.”

David Pastrnak, by his own admission, is not proficient at sports that involve throwing or catching a ball of any kind. As such, it’s a good bet the Bruins’ biggest on-ice superstar would not be very comfortable if he had to trade his Bauer stick for a Louisville Slugger.

“He’s strictly a hockey player, I feel,” Clifton said. “They don’t know baseball over there anyway, right? Czechia doesn’t have baseball.”

When informed of his teammates’ conclusions, Pastrnak gave a partial concession. He had enough pride, though, to stand up for himself in another way.

“I’ll give that to them because I never swung the bat before,” said Pastrnak. “I went out there today and tried. I went one for one. So I finished on the top. I made contact. I think I would get on first base, no problem. I think I’d be good at stealing bases too.”

In Pastrnak’s defense, some of his teammates offered hands-down opinions on players who would be more out of place on the diamond.

“Marshy,” Brandon Carlo said of Brad Marchand. “Terrible. Terrible.”

Carlo, it seems, should not have been talking.

“I’d probably say Brando,” Jake DeBrusk said. “I don’t trust him with a baseball bat. He’d be a good base runner, though, I think. Everyone’s got their own skills.”

Like Carlo, DeBrusk probably had no business criticizing anyone’s baseball talent.

“Who can I pick on?” Nick Foligno mused. “I’m going to say Jake DeBrusk should just stay with hockey. He’s a one-sport athlete.”

Upbringing, it seems, is a critical factor in determining how a young athlete takes to certain sports. As Clifton noted, baseball is not a popular sport for children in Czechia. Soccer, hockey and tennis are more common options. The Bruins have a healthy European contingent: Pastrnak, David Krejci, Hampus Lindholm, Tomas Nosek, Linus Ullmark, Pavel Zacha and Jakub Zboril.

“Probably any European,” coach Jim Montgomery said when asked which of his players should stick to hockey. “Because they can’t throw, right? They don’t do anything with their arms overhead.”

“I’m going to go with the foreign guys,” Carlo said as well. “I think Pasta probably wouldn’t be very good at baseball. He might be able to. His hand-eye coordination is unbelievable. Jakub Zboril. Pavel Zacha. Krech, probably.”

For the most part, the Europeans are quite comfortable kicking around the soccer ball pregame, perhaps more so than the Americans and Canadians. Alaskan Jeremy Swayman knows this well.

“I’d get smoked,” Swayman said of competing against his teammates on the soccer field. “I do it every pregame.”

European bias, however, does not always stand. Ullmark, for one, can handle himself at the plate.

“I would think some of the European guys,” Charlie Coyle said of who might struggle at Fenway. “But also, Linus Ullmark, we played softball one time, and he was surprisingly really good. So I say that. But I don’t think all those Europeans can be that special, right? I’d say one of those guys. I’m not going to point out anyone.”

“Linus is actually pretty good,” Grzelcyk concurred. “That surprised me. He was cranking the ball. We did a team building exercise last year and we all played baseball together. He was probably the best hitter on the team. I didn’t see that coming. That was surprising for sure.”

Jokes aside, coaches see value in young hockey players participating in other sports, including baseball.

“The more you’re able to understand not only physically — there’s hand-eye coordination, there’s physical talent available — but if you’re playing second base in baseball, the ball’s going to be hit to you and there’s one out when there’s a runner on second, what are you supposed to do? That translates to when you’re sitting on the bench,” said Montgomery. “You’re watching something that happens on the ice and that’s the time where you can reflect. The sport of baseball teaches you to think while you’re sitting or while you’re waiting for something to happen. As a hockey player, you need to grow mentally from being able to watch and learn from others. If you’re sitting on the bench, Pastrnak tried a shot and he beat the goalie low stick side but it didn’t go in, if you use the same move or same shot attempt, that’s a hole maybe you can expose.”

Pastrnak is embracing the baseball experience. He will play with custom Bauer sticks painted in Fenway green and decorated with scoreboard graphics and a David Ortiz logo. His green-and-white Bauer skates are stenciled with baseball seams.

But Pastrnak is not changing his day job.

(Photo of David Pastrnak: Steve Babineau / NHLI via Getty Images)

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