Delmarva's Cam Kneeland making the most of his opportunity

SALISBURY, Md. - It's three hours before the Single-A Delmarva Shorebirds entertain the Charleston RiverDogs in a doubleheader at Perdue Stadium, and there's precious little activity that would suggest that a pair of seven-inning games are on the docket. Most of the Shorebirds are escaping the sweltering 88-degree heat by seeking refuge in the air-conditioned clubhouse, though a few guys clad in shorts are whizzing a Nerf Vortex football in left field, oblivious to the blazing sun.

Beneath the third base stands, Cam Kneeland is busy honing his craft, whacking baseballs in an indoor batting cage. It's stuffy and a little dark, but a sweat-drenched Kneeland is focused on his swing, ripping line drives that are caught in netting, the baseballs retrieved so they can be hit again and again.

If fans of the South Atlantic League club didn't know the 25-year Kneeland before the season began, they know him now. On a team filled with guys getting their first taste of full-season pro baseball, Kneeland is an anomaly, one of the older guys in the clubhouse and in his fourth season of pro ball. Jomar Reyes, the third baseman regarded as the brightest prospect on the team, is 18, seven years Kneeland's junior.

Where Reyes is on a fast track through the Orioles organization, Kneeland has had to scratch and claw for everything he's achieved in the game. Undrafted out of Massachusetts-Lowell, he wound up in the independent Canadian-American League, where he quickly learned that if anyone was going to forge him into a baseball player, it was going to have to be Kneeland himself.

In his senior season, he filled out paperwork for several major league clubs, and there was some chatter that the Minnesota Twins might draft him in the late rounds, but Kneeland's name wasn't called during the 2011 First-Year Player Draft. His college hitting coach had a connection in the Can-Am League, and Kneeland wound up on the Worcester (Mass.) Tornadoes the following season. In 2013, he moved to the Trois-Rivieres in Quebec City, Quebec, where he slashed .306/.364/.468 with nine homer and 62 RBIs and drew the interest of Orioles scouts.

Baltimore signed him and sent him to short-season Single-A Aberdeen, where Kneeland appeared in just two games. This season, he earned a spot on the Shorebirds roster out of spring training, and has appeared in 77 games, slashing .258/.336/.387 with three homers and 41 RBIs, the second-highest total on the club.

Shorebirds skipper Ryan Minor, who finished his pro career at 31 with the independent Atlantic League's Lancaster Barnstormers, understands that some players coming out of indy ball carry a stigma of not being good enough to play for affiliated teams, and that a guy who is a few years older than most of his teammates has an additional hurdle to climb. But neither obstacle, he says, fazed Kneeland.

"For Cam, it's just getting an opportunity with us to play," Minor explains. "He signed a little late with us last year and didn't play a whole lot. He's come in here, and I think he appreciates his opportunity that he's been given here. There was some point, in some conversations, (doubt) whether he was going to make the club or not. When he had that opportunity, he made the most of it. ... When he's gotten the opportunity to play, he's made the most of it. He's been a leader for us."

Kneeland played sporadically early this season, and didn't light up the stats sheet when he was getting a chance. In late May, his average dipped to a season-low .167, but first-year hitting coach and ex-Oriole Howie Clark marveled at how Kneeland wasn't frustrated by his bad luck. You know the old baseball adage about all of those well-struck balls that went for naught eventually evening out? Kneeland was about to learn it, firsthand.

"With experience, he doesn't dwell on the previous game," says Clark, an Oriole in 2002 and 2006 who played parts of six big league seasons. "Every day, he comes in and he's fresh. When he walks out the door, he leaves it in here. He understands the big picture in that sense."

The Shorebirds were decimated by injuries - some day-to-day situations, others that took regulars out of the lineup for longer stretches. Guys got promoted to Single-A Frederck. Suddenly, Kneeland was playing regularly - and not just at third base, his primary position - and the increased playing time brought better results at the plate. And more productive at-bats yielded regular playing time - at shortstop, third base, second base, first base, even left field. When both of their regular catchers went down, there was even talk that Kneeland might be used as an emergency catcher. He says that's the one position he really doesn't have an interest in playing, but you get the idea that if Minor asked, he'd strap on the gear and make a go of it. (Kneeland has never appeared in right field, behind the plate or pitched since joining the Orioles organization, but did pitch in three games in 2012 for Worcester, compiling a 15.43 ERA.)

"What we've went through with injuries and promotions, ... for Cam, just to be a little bit older, I think his maturity level resonates through the clubhouse," Minor says. "Especially with the young guys, they see his approach getting ready for a ballgame. Just the idea that sometimes, less is more. You don't have to go out and spent two hours in the cage with Howie to get ready for a ballgame. He really does prepare himself with quality time in the cage, takes ground balls at all these positions. When he's able to do that, he puts himself in position to be successful. From the mid-point of the first half until now, he's been kind of our key guy to make sure we have in the lineup every night."

When Clark first saw Kneeland, a native of Rowley, Mass., at minor league spring training in Sarasota, he figured he was a guy who had spent several years moving up the organizational ladder, not a guy who had been rescued from the obscurity of the Can-Am League. Like Minor, Clark was immediately struck by Kneeland's maturity and demeanor.

"Cam, he's a pretty even-keel guy," Clark says. "He's got a really sound approach. You know what you're going to get day in and day out, and that's a huge thing for us. He's very easy in regards to maintenance. He knows what he needs for the day. We chat a little bit, but he's very self-sufficient."

To hear Kneeland tell it, that's simply a result of paying attention to his surroundings and appreciating the opportunity he's been given.

"Indy ball, going from that to here, it helped me prepare a lot and it helped me respect it a lot more," he explains. "Guys in indy ball are all fighting to get on a team. Some guys here don't realize that until you get released. You see a lot of indy ball players - everyone has a lot of drive, but indy ball guys have a little more drive than the others because they don't know what it's like to be on a lower level and not in an organization."

Kneeland's signing by the Orioles didn't warrant more than some tiny type on a transaction page - if it was noticed at all. Every year, major league clubs sign guys who are used to fill spots in their minor leagues - a backup catcher on a Single-A club, an extra left-handed reliever on a Double-A team, a reserve infielder who can play multiple positions on a short-season squad.

Some people might look at Kneeland as one of those organizational space holders. Only when he got his shot, he made the most of it. And there are worse job descriptions than a guy willing to do whatever he's asked, fill whatever role is needed to make the team successful.

"You sometimes get the stigma of being a little older in this league and it's like you're just filler," Minor says. "But those guys tend to hang around a long time and opportunities tend to open up, whether it's in this organization or another organization. People like guys with experience and maturity level and the ability to walk into a clubhouse and not mess up the atmosphere. Cam's definitely one of those guys. ... He's been a blessing to have around for us. Especially with the younger guys."

Minor and Clark have come to look at Kneeland as a pseudo-coach, a guy who leads by example and who can still relate to his teammates in a baseball sense. Kneeland says he doesn't feel at all like the teenager who's been assigned to eat with the youngsters at the card table for Thanksgiving dinner.

"I'm hoping to open some eyes, but I'm just happy to be playing baseball," Kneeland says. "Everyone here is getting paid a little bit to play the game that supposedly they love. I can't complain because I get to put a uniform on every day. Hopefully, I can move up through the system. If not, I'm enjoying my time right now."

Those early-season struggles might as well be a distant memory. Funny how some success seems to make things feel better.

"Baseball is a really tough game mentally, and you can't let anything get to you," he says. "You have to take it a pitch at a time, an at-bat at a time. Just move on if you have three Ks or four Ks in a night, you go in the next day and you got to move on. You let anything wear you down, you're going to go down a bad slope."

Kneeland isn't about to let that happen, not with the Shorebirds a handful of games within the Northern Division lead and about five weeks remaining on the schedule.

"All I need is a chance," Kneeland says. "Coming into the year, I figured I'd be one of those guys you get on a roll and they want to see what I can do. That's all you can ask for: to get an opportunity to play. That's the best thing you can ask for."

Photo courtesy of Joey Gardner/Delmarva Shorebirds