Living his dream: Uniontown grad Robowski enjoyed his time in minor leagues
Submitted photo
Uniontown graduate Ryan Robowski is shown during his playing days with the Erie Seawolves minor league team.
Submitted photo
Uniontown graduate Ryan Robowski is shown during his playing days in the Detroit Tigers organization.
Former Uniontown High School athletic standout Ryan Robowski lived his athletic dream to the fullest extent.
Robowski lettered in three sports for the Red Raiders in the mid 2000s. He started in athletics at an early age.
“I really just played soccer and baseball growing up,” Robowski said. “I didn’t start playing football until my junior year in high school. I played T-Ball, Little League and all of those in baseball.”
Robowski was a top-notch pitcher for the Red Raiders on the baseball diamond on teams that went 6-6 in Section 2 play and 7-8 overall in 2004-2005 and, during his senior year, 2-10 in section action and 6-11 overall.
“We thought we had a really good team my senior year,” Robowski lamented. “We lost a lot of close games.”
Despite the team’s lack of success. Robowski put up some solid numbers as a lefthanded pitcher and first baseman.
As a junior, the 5-foot-11, 160-pound Robowski was 5-1 on the mound and batted .465 with 19 RBIs. In his senior season he was 2-3 with a sparkling 1.46 ERA and notched 56 strikeouts. At the plate he batted .426 with four home runs and seven RBIs.
“Even though my record (5-1) was better as a junior, I’m throwing the ball better,” Robowski said at the time in the Tribune Review. “I hit for a higher average last year, but I’m hitting for more power. I feel I’m a better player this year.”
Robowski also excelled in soccer for the Red Raiders on teams that went 3-9 in Section 4 and 4-11 overall in 2004-2005 and 2-10 in the section and 4-12 overall in 2005-2006. He was all-section as a forward.
“I loved playing soccer,” Robowski said. “I loved that team. We had a really core group of guys that had played together since junior high at Ben Franklin and we even played travel soccer together.”
Some of Robowski’s friends talked him into trying out for the football team as a kicker.
“They put the ball on a tee and told me to kick it as far as I could,” Robowski recalled. “The coaches huddled and I became the team’s placekicker.”
During Robowski’s junior season Uniontown’s football team posted a record of 1-6 in Keystone Conference play and 2-7 overall. His senior campaign the Red Raiders made the WPIAL playoffs, going 5-2 in the conference and 6-4 overall. They were defeated in the playoffs by Hampton 35-7.
As a junior, Robowski scored 13 points on extra points. His senior year he tallied 14 extra points and booted seven field goals for another 21 points. He was named All-Keystone Conference as a kicker his senior year.
“Football was a blast playing with my friends who talked me into trying out as a kicker,” Robowski said. “We made the playoffs my senior year and got beat by a very good Hampton team.”
Robowski decided to concentrate on baseball as he looked to college when he graduated from Uniontown in 2006. He played American Legion ball for Colonial, and played for Mario’s in the Fayette County Baseball League and also played AAU baseball for the Pittsburgh Diamond Dawgs.
“I did play in three leagues in high school,” Robowski said. “County League was amazing. I loved playing in the County League with Mario’s. It was a great learning experience playing against older guys, and American Legion ball was very good.”
Baseball offers from different colleges came in for Robowski.
“I had a lot of college visits and a lot of letters,” Robowski explained. “I ended up at Ohio Dominican because my AAU coach for the Diamond Dawgs was Kevin Green who went to Ohio Dominican and he got drafted out of there and he was such a big part of my development as a man, as a baseball player and I ended up going on a visit there and loving coach Paul Page and I chose to go there.”
Ohio Dominican was very successful when Robowski was in Columbus. The Panthers played in the NAIA American Midwest Conference. In 2007 they were 19-5 in the conference and 49-13 overall. Robowski was 3-1 with a 1.74 ERA and 21 strikeouts.
In 2008 the Panthers were 21-5 in conference play and 40-16 overall. Robowski went 7-3 with a 4.90 ERA and 64 strikeouts.
In 2009 Ohio Dominican finished 20-10 in the conference and 31-21 overall. Robowski was 5-1 with a 1.90 ERA and 56 strikeouts. Robowski was All-AMC in 2009.
“It was a very good college program,” Robowski recalled. “My junior year we had two guys get draft, me and Jonathan Kountis. For an NAIA program we played really good competition and we had really good players. We made a regional every year I was there and we went to the NAIA World Series in 2008 and got beat by Lewis-Clark State.”
Robowski became the 10th Ohio Dominican player ever selected in the Major League Baseball draft.
“I was drafted in the 16th round in 2009 by the Arizona Diamondbacks,” Robowski stated. “I felt like I had my chance, but I didn’t quite get there. I was with Arizona and was traded to the Detroit Tigers organization with Kevin Eichorn for pitcher Armando Galarraga.”
That’s the same Armando Galarraga who threw a near-perfect game for the Tigers major league team the year before in 2010, coming up one out short after the infamous blown call by umpire Jim Joyce.
“I was in the Arizona system for a year and a half and then the rest of my career in the Tigers system,” Robowski said.
In seven minor league seasons Robowski was 19-19 with a 4.14 ERA and 16 career saves. He recorded 316 career strikeouts. One of those strikeouts is a memorable one.
“Like the only thing in my career on YouTube is me striking out Aaron Judge on three pitches,” Robowski said. “He was not the player he is now, but he was still pretty imposing.”
Judge is now a two-time All-Star with the New York Yankees and led the American League in home runs with 52 in 2017.
Robowski was released by the Tigers in 2015.
“I didn’t make it because I wasn’t good enough,” Robowski said. “My last year I just wasn’t pitching well and I was cut. Some independent teams reached out after I was released, but in minor league years I was older and I was married and I thought this is the time to be home. I had to grow up at some point and get a real job.”
Robowski, 33, resides in Louisville, Kentucky and is a ?Financial Center Manager for Fifth Third Bank. Robowski and his wife Casey Jo have been married since 2013.
Looking back, Robowski has no regrets about his baseball career.
“It was what I always wanted to do,” Robowski said. “I might not have made the big leagues, but I got to definitely live my dream. I gave it everything I had, it didn’t work out how I wanted, but I would not trade those memories and that experience for anything.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Sunday editions of the Ăĺ±±˝űµŘ. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.