Iowan Calvin Harris has prepared to become a pro baseball player his entire life

PEOSTA – It’s a hot June afternoon as Calvin Harris stands in the backyard batting cage at his parents' Dubuque County home. Harris, wearing a gray Ole Miss t-shirt, is taking some swings in the cage located a few steps from the family’s driveway. The cage has a pitching machine, netting and baseballs scattered about. As younger brother Brett gets ready to serve up another offering, Calvin gives him instructions.

“Throw the next two away,” Calvin orders.

Brett complies. He lightly underhands the next two throws to the opposite side of the plate for his left-handed-hitting older brother. Calvin doesn’t miss them. Using his wooden bat, he smacks the first pitch to the end of the cage and off the pitching machine, making a loud noise. The second one is hit just as hard, smashing into the protective netting behind Brett, who is standing safely behind a protective L-screen.

“I feel pretty good about it,” Harris says of his swing.

There’s a lot to like about the Western Dubuque High School graduate's overall game. Harris just finished up his junior season at Ole Miss and was one of the top college catchers in the nation. He also boasts a powerful bat that produced historic results and helped the Rebels win a national title in 2022.

Harris could hear his name called early in this year’s MLB Draft, which starts Sunday and ends Tuesday. But the baseball journey won’t end there for Harris.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if he played in the big leagues someday,” said former MLB catcher Eric Munson, who has worked with Harris for years.

Harris' lifelong goal: Play in the big leagues

Harris had his sights set on becoming a Major League Baseball player at a young age. His dad, Scott, remembers when Calvin was in sixth grade and his teacher asked the kids to write down what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Calvin played other sports but had fallen in love with baseball and wrote that he wanted to play in the big leagues. Scott and Calvin’s mom, Juli, didn’t discourage their son’s dreams. They prepared him.

“Obviously that’s a great goal,” Scott said. “(I said to him), ‘There’s a lot of hard work to get to that point. And it takes a special person because you have to sacrifice a lot of things. If your goal is that, you have to make sacrifices.’”

Calvin was willing. His parents did whatever they could to help him, signing him up for lessons with Munson, a former-first round pick by the Detroit Tigers. Following a nine-year stint in the big-leagues, Munson moved to Iowa and opened an indoor-training facility in Dubuque. Harris was his first client. Munson was blown away by Harris’ work ethic and potential.

“I was pretty impressed," Munson said. “I said, ‘OK, this kid’s going to play. I knew he’s at least going to play in college. How far? Then it’s kind of up to him.”

Harris jumped at any opportunity to get on the field for a game or to work on his craft. He played on an all-star team headed up by longtime major-league player Nomar Garciaparra. Scott used his connections from his golf car company to line up a lesson from Kerry Wood at Wrigley Field. At 14, Calvin started playing semi-pro ball for nearby Farley, competing against grown men. Western Dubuque coach Casey Bryant watched Harris hold his own against a left-handed college pitcher who had recently won Iowa Conference Pitcher of the Year honors.

“It was a real defining moment,” Bryant said.

Bryant, whose son Ben played travel baseball with Harris growing up, already knew the young catcher was good. But after watching him battle against players older than him and have success, Bryant realized Harris had what it took to play varsity as an eighth-grader. Harris was so young that he had to walk from the middle school in Farley to the town park for practice before getting his school permit.

Harris wasn’t overmatched, though. He hit .276 as an eighth-grader and started getting attention from college recruiters. During the fall of his freshman year, Harris committed to Ole Miss, a powerhouse program in the Southeastern Conference that had been to the College World Series five times.

The commitment and the early success put Harris on the map. He was recognized as one of the state's top talents. Some opposing pitchers wouldn't throw him a strike. Some fans would taunt him.

During a game at North Scott one season, Harris hit a ball that sailed over the school's outfield fence and landed on a batting cage. Bryant estimates the ball traveled more than 400 feet. Bryant said fans from one school were heckling the star during a game later in high school and called the team and catcher overrated. Harris promptly tossed a shutout and hit a couple of home runs.

"Not very often do you have other teams that disrespect you," Bryant said. "But when they did, Calvin was at his best."

Harris was rarely off. He was a five-time letter winner and three-year captain in baseball while being named Iowa Baseball Gatorade Player of the Year in 2018 and 2019. Harris hit .390/.475/.576 as a sophomore and .413/.518/.790 as a junior. Still, the work continued. After a rough game one season, Scott said Calvin came home at 11 p.m., pulled his vehicle around back and shined the lights on the batting cage so he could take some hacks.

"He didn't hit very good and he didn't want that to happen again," Scott said.

Harris becomes a star at Ole Miss and an MLB Draft prospect

Calvin was on the radar of MLB teams even back in high school. He had all the tools that evaluators loved as a left-handed hitting catcher with power and a strong presence behind the plate. Perfect Game ranked him as the best catcher in Iowa and the No. 93 player in the nation.

When the 2020 MLB Draft rolled around, Harris said a couple of teams reached out to see if he would be interested in signing for what they would offer. But Harris was looking forward to going to Ole Miss. With the draft limited to just five rounds because of COVID-19, he went unselected.

Harris' stock soared during his time in the SEC. Rebels skipper Mike Bianco was so impressed that he gave Harris playing time as a freshman (including 17 starts).

Harris then missed the fall season due to elbow surgery, but the work never stopped. Harris went into the baseball facility sometimes seven days a week. He worked on his rehab, his diet and his game. The hard work paid off again for Harris, who had a huge sophomore season.

Harris led a powerful Ole Miss team in batting average (.336) and on-base percentage (.417). He helped the Rebels win their first NCAA title with a prolific performance at the plate in Omaha, hitting .400 (8-for-20) with two home runs, six RBIs and five runs scored.

The performance made Harris a household name in the college baseball world and gave him more confidence.

"I think it just kind of helped me realize like, 'Hey, if you can do this on the biggest stage in college baseball, then just about anywhere else you play is probably going to be a little bit easier,'" Harris said.

Harris tore into the record books with an unforgettable performance this past season when he went 4-for-6 with four homers and 10 RBIs during a 20-14 victory against Missouri on May 4. Harris became the first player in Ole Miss history to hit four homers in a game and just the third SEC player to accomplish the feat.

"I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like that," Bianco said of Harris' day.

Harris started all 54 games for the Rebels, including 48 at catcher. He finished his junior campaign ranked second on the team in slugging percentage (.579), hits (67), home runs (12), doubles (14) and total bases (121). He was third on the team in batting average (.321).

Harris' successful season made him even more intriguing to scouts and evaluators. MLB.com ranks him the 133rd-best prospect in the draft, which would put him somewhere around the fourth round. He was invited to this year's MLB Scouting Combine, reserved for some of the nation's top talent eligible for the draft.

Harris still has eligibility remaining at Ole Miss. If he signs with an MLB team, he'll begin his pro baseball journey and take another step toward the goal he set for himself long ago.

"It's crazy," Harris said. "It's certainly a full-circle moment."

Tommy Birch, the Register's sports enterprise and features reporter, has been working at the newspaper since 2008. He's the 2018 and 2020 Iowa Sportswriter of the Year. Reach him at tbirch@dmreg.com or 515-284-8468. Follow him on Twitter @TommyBirch.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa native Calvin Harris has made himself into big MLB Draft prospect