WATERTOWN, N.Y. -- At 6'2 300lbs, Ben Ancheff is about to take the field in Watertown.
But believe it or not, Ben isn't playing with the Red & Black football team. Big Ben is a baseball player. He's a pitcher with a cannon for an arm.
"Being a big guy and pitching isn't new to me. I started pitching in high school and I've always been a big guy. I was 285 pounds my 8th grade year of school so for me it's nothing new, but for people who haven't seen it, it's pretty interesting to them," Ancheff said from the Watertown Bucks Dugout.
Seeing him was perhaps never more interesting than just last year, when Ben was noticed by the entire country. He was pitching in the NAIA National Championship game. It was televised. Twitter took notice. Major websites wrote stories, ESPN, The Big Lead, Deadspin, even those that typically don't cover sports. Ben went viral. If you didn't know him, you probably thought the same thing as everyone else.
"I thought it was just kind of a hoax. I was like man, 'There's no way this kid plays and throws as hard as everyone says'," Watertown Bucks Player Collis Hunt said.
But when you do get to know him, you understand not only is he the real deal on the mound, but the other stuff, he gets it.
"I think everyone just wanted to see it, see if the hype was real and see what was going on," Ancheff said with a smile and laugh.
And that's it. Ben smiles and laughs. He has fun with it all. It's a game. A game he loves.
"I have tough skin. I can take a good joke here and there. Nothing has ever gone too far. I don't let anything really get to me or bother me," Ben said.
That's because when you've gone through what Ben has gone through, his size, people noticing, that's nothing.
"When I was born, I was baptised right away. I got the Sacrament of the Saint. I got my last rites. Yeah, It was really tough on my mom and dad," Ben Remembered
In 1992, Ben was born premature. He suffered from what was believed to be a heart and/or lung deficiency. He was given 12 hours to live.
But his doctors at Hershey Medical Center and his parents agreed to try an experimental machine that removed blood from his body to take out carbon dioxide and red blood cells. It worked. He beat the odds.
"Going back to the Children's Miracle Network and seeing kids in wheel chairs and with mental disabilities and you see this and you see that. I truly understand just how blessed I am to be walking around doing something that I love to do everyday," Ben said.
But even that wasn't easy. Ben started his college career at a big time school, the University of Gerogia. But he didn't get he playing time he needed and he went to a junior college. He had such success there, leading the nation in wins, he got another D1 offer. It was from Central Arkansas. He pitched brilliantly over his first three outings. His fourth almost cost him his chance at a career.
"One pitch, elbow popped," He recalled.
Ben needed Tommy John surgery and it came with no guarantee of recovery. His time at Central Arkansas was over. His baseball career was in jeopardy.
"Very like, helpless. It was like you had nowhere to go," Ben remembered feeling.
But a semester later, Ben would get a call that would change his life.
In part two of our look at Watertown Bucks Pitcher Ben Ancheff, Brian brings us the story of Ben's fight back, leading to the moment he first stepped onto the mound as a professional baseball player.