Two outs and left for dead.
As the sun beat down on the rough southern dirt, a lone cowboy approached the pitcher’s mound in the 10th inning. A southpaw gunslinger with six pitches in his arsenal, then-junior pitcher Will Tobin looked down to home plate and struck down three of his opponents in less than two innings. With St. John’s University at bat and the team’s chance to reach the championships weighing on his shoulders, Tobin had everything to lose.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough space in that town for both teams, and St. John’s came out on top in a 12-inning loss for Penn that culminated in Tobin letting up the walk-off to finish the game. Ending his junior season in that heartbreaking duel gave him a score to settle and a desire to win that could not be shot down in his final rodeo.
The first in his family to play baseball, Tobin traveled a long way from home to play for the Quakers. A Tennessee native, he found baseball when he was three years old, and pitching became second nature. Just like his journey to the mound, his journey to Penn seemed like fate.
“Being in, like, a city like Philadelphia, I love the meshing of the cultures and how new and diverse everything was because everything in Tennessee was pretty one-track minded,” Tobin said. “Coming to Penn — also having a good baseball team, great academics, and then getting to experience something new — I felt was the best possible situation I could have found myself in.”
Senior pitcher Will Tobin poses with playing cards at Smokey Joes on Feb. 25.
Following the departure of many of the team’s seniors, there was a new pitcher in town: Tobin. Despite his laid-back attitude, Tobin has earned his spurs many times over.
“Will is what you would call, as a coach, sort of the prototypical case of a player that just keeps getting better,” assistant coach Josh Schwartz said. “His role has increased on the pitching staff every year since he’s been here.”
From only pitching eight innings across his freshman year to being in the starting lineup his senior year, Tobin’s success stems from his mindset, where he has learned how to wrangle the anxiety and noise to keep his eyes on the prize.
“I try to keep everything out of my head and trust the work that I put in — the weeks, the months, and the years before I got out on the mound,” Tobin said.
This cowboy was never one to settle. In the last year, Tobin has added three new pitches that he could pull out of his holster, making him an ace in the hole for the Quakers. Yet he knows there’s more than just speed and strength involved in the game.
“Baseball, for me, is 25% physical, 75% mental,” he said. “As a pitcher, you’re in command of everything that is about to happen with whatever pitch you’re about to throw.”
His development as a go-to gunslinger for the Quakers has been apparent. From hidden overhead speed on fastballs to arm reliability, Tobin has proven time and time again that you’d be wiser picking a fight with a rattlesnake than crossing him on the mound. When describing his sharpshooting qualities, Schwartz said Tobin was “statistically by far our best pitcher.”
“He doesn’t really get rattled and always continues to throw strikes and even throw a second arm slot, which, again, I can’t really undersell how significant that is,” Schwartz said.
A rugged, southern cowboy with a heart of gold, Tobin wants to give back to the teammates who changed his perspective on baseball.
“When I got to college … it was like the first time in a couple of years I’d really loved to go to practice, loved to play, and it didn’t feel like an obligation,” Tobin said.
“What stood out is how … personal he was, like his EQ,” senior outfielder Nate Polo said. “He was really able to make friends with a bunch of different personalities.” Not many cowboys can walk into a saloon and leave calling everyone a friend, but Tobin sure can.
Tobin has his eye on one final duel: a third-straight Ivy League tournament win.
“I can speak on behalf of all 35 guys on the team: There’s no doubt in our minds we’ll go and win another one,” he said.
After years of gunslinging for Penn baseball, he’s ready to hang up his hat and try out a new frontier, whether that’s opening up his own bookstore or coaching a little league baseball team. Whatever it is, Tobin doesn’t plan on riding into the sunset without leaving his mark on the Red and Blue.
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