Baseball has always been an important part of senior Camden Karlin’s life. Karlin’s dad played baseball for KU in the late 1980s and started coaching after he graduated, which he still does to this day.
During Karlin’s first two years of college he went to Kansas City Kansas Community College (KCKCC), after his two years there he made the decision to go to Baker.
“My goal in college was to be able to catch and pitch. Baker was one of the few schools that had that opportunity for me” Karlin said.
On top of Baker being a good option for his sport, his older brother Cooper had also spent a few years at Baker, and was planning to come back to play with his younger brother for a season. “He graduated in 2019 and then came back to Baker in 2023” Karlin said, “this was the first time we played together so this was pretty fun.”
After dealing with an injury earlier in his Baker career, Karlin got the opportunity to help coach, “I had elbow surgery and I was kind of able to coach at Baker a little and help the catchers. It was a good experience,” Karlin said.
For the rest of this season Karlin has a few goals, the main one being making it to the Heart of America Conference tournament.
“I think getting 30 wins would be pretty cool, I know that’s kind of been a goal of ours. over the past couple years and we’ve been close. We just haven’t been able to reach that. It’s like a big number in NAIA baseball,” Karlin said, “we just gotta keep stacking wins as well as we can.”
Baseball is a sport with a lot of players, though the roster size has changed a lot in the last few years Baker’s current roster size is around 60. With such a big team, it has taught Karlin “the ability to work as a team, we’ve had some up and down years, but when we come together and work as a team its really cool” Karlin said.
After the baseball season concludes and Karlin graduates, he plans to do something with his degrees as well as stay in touch with baseball, “I have a degree in accounting, and I got my NBA in finance. I like the numbers part, it kind of goes well with baseball” Karlin said, “I interned where my sister works in their accounting department and I really enjoyed it.”
Baker baseball currently has a 19-13 record, with more than 15 games to go in the regular season Karlin and the baseball team will play next on April 7, against William Woods at home.
