The third child amongst five brothers, former Royals pitcher and current St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Tanner Jacobson always had someone to compete with growing up. The frequent competition turned into a sibling rivalry, specifically with his oldest brother Cameron.
"Cameron and I had a pretty intense rivalry," Jacobson explained. "My brothers and I all wanted to be the best at something, so we were always competing to be that guy at everything."
Similar to most college and professional athletes, Jacobson and his brothers were heavily involved in youth sports which introduced them to their passions.
"We all played sports growing up and I think I was around five or six years old just playing with my older brothers when I started playing baseball," Jacobson reflected.
While they all played baseball, Tanner, Cameron, and Troy also wrestled. Though Jacobson eventually gave up the sport his sophomore year of high school, his brothers finished out their high school careers and Cameron moved on to wrestle at the University of Pittsburgh.
Jacobson, like many youth baseball players, always dreamed of playing collegiately and hopefully professionally one day. It wasn't until he started playing with the best that he started believing he could play at higher levels.
"When I started playing travel ball and surrounding myself with all that talent is when I began to think that I could play college baseball," Jacobson said. "I was able to compete against the top talent and players across the state and northern region."
As the Pittsburgh native began to develop and enter high school, he became more serious about getting to the next level. However, the recruiting process was slower and later than Jacobson would have liked as most of the attention he received was from smaller Division II schools in the Pennsylvania area. During his senior campaign, Jacobson was working out at a facility in Pittsburgh when he got word that Queens was transitioning from a club team to an NCAA team the following season.
A senior looking for a new home to play baseball next season, Jacobson did some research on the university and the Charlotte area and thought, "why not?"
"When I heard that Queens was starting a new program it sparked my interest because I wanted to branch out from Pittsburgh and go down south for baseball because the southern talent is really good," he said.
Jacobson eventually visited Queens and fell in love with the community and the city. While many incoming student-athletes are intimated by the possibility of starting something from scratch, Jacobson embraced the opportunity to be the first. Entering his freshman year at Queens, the department officially welcomed the baseball team as an NCAA-sponsored sport.
"It was pretty cool because not a lot of people can say that they started something from nothing. You are being a part of something special and laying the bricks for something to turn into what it is now a newly Division 1 program."
The beginning had plenty of challenges for Jacobson and his teammates, however. Through their first three seasons together, the Royals amounted to a total of 27 wins. However, the growing pains surpassed as Queens left their stamp in their final season at the Division II level securing 29 wins on the season. In addition to the most wins in program history, the Royals made their first conference tournament appearance ever and shattered plenty of records along the way.
"We were able to accomplish a lot for the first time this season," explained Jacobson. "We had a winning season and made the conference tournament for the first time. It's been sort of a rocky road, but something special is truly being built here."
The special and historic 2022 season paid off in big ways for the Pittsburgh native. Jacobson was a pivotal front end of the rotation arm for the Royals throwing 61.2 innings across 16 appearances, including eight starts. The right-hander posted a 5-3 overall record and a 4.09 earned run average while hurling a pair of complete games and held opposing hitters to a .209 batting average and struck out a team-high 79 batters. In a difficult South Atlantic Conference, Jacobson was top 15 in the league in earned run average and strikeouts.
Jacobson's impressive stat line caught the eyes of many MLB scouts as his dream of becoming a professional baseball player increased significantly. On day two of the 2022 MLB Draft, Jacobson and fellow teammates were hanging out at his house in Charlotte watching the draft and anxiously waiting for a phone call. Jacobson had an idea going into the draft that he was projected to be drafted on day two or three after his conversations with scouts, but that didn't make the day easier.
"You're just super anxious as you wait for that phone to ring and you're getting texts and calls from different teams that are looking to get you," he said. "When you're hearing that, you just can't wait to hear your name called or for something to happen."
All of the anxieties faded when the St. Louis Cardinals called to tell Jacobson he was selected with the 307th pick in the 10th round of the draft.
Surrounded by his teammates, Jacobson felt the sense of years of hard work and battling with his teammates come to fruition.
"It was very special to have my team around me," he said. "They were pumped for me because they want nothing but the best for their teammates and friends. It was really cool having them around me because they are like my second family."
In just their fourth year of existence as an NCAA sport, Royals head coach Ross Steedley and his staff haveproduced the program's first-ever professional player. While 2022 had plenty of historic firsts closing out the Division 2 era, the Royals are ready to make their next move playing Division 1 baseball in the ASUN conference.
As for Jacobson, he has been moved to the FCL Cardinals roster in Fort Myers, Fla. where he is developing his body and pitches as he looks to soon make his way through the minor league system.
"When you're young everyone has that dream of being a Major League Baseball player," Jacobson explained. "And I have been trying to keep those dreams alive for as long as possible."
Original source can be found here.
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