Ben Van Cleve is not one to stay still for long.
The former Indianola Academy and Northwest Mississippi Community College star had quickly made a name for himself on the Ole Miss Rebels baseball team before the college season was brought to a screeching halt due to COVID-19 back in April.
He had recorded 10 hits in his first 26 at-bats. That’s a .385 batting average.
That was no surprise to anyone who has followed the Colonel/Ranger/Rebel throughout this career. He finished his sophomore year at Northwest by leading the team in batting average, home runs and RBI.
Making a Southeastern Conference baseball roster isn’t easy, but Van Cleve is a natural at his craft, and his early-season success forced the Rebels to find a place for him in the lineup for a sizeable portion of the dozen games Ole Miss was able to play.
Van Cleve’s bat helped Ole Miss to an early 11-1 record, which included an 11-game win streak against non-conference competition.
He was looking forward to facing SEC pitching for the first time, against LSU, when the season was canceled.
Losing the season after just a couple of weeks was disheartening enough, but Van Cleve and other players also faced the possibility of losing an entire year of eligibility.
The NCAA acted quickly last spring to reassure those who play spring sports that they would have that extra year if they choose to return.
“Oh, that’s huge for a guy like me,” Van Cleve told The E-T in an interview this week. “I’m going to be a senior in the classroom, and I’m going to be a junior again on the baseball field. So, now I’ve got my draft year back, and that’s a really big plus for me, and that really made me happy that they made that decision. I know there are a lot of players across the country who are happy with that decision as well.”
With that weight off his shoulders, Van Cleve returned to Indianola after the season ended and all of the baseball facilities in Oxford were shuttered.
He started running, working out and playing golf.
“I really got into golf a lot more this summer,” Van Cleve said. “I think that golf is a lot like baseball in a way. It’s a very mental game. Baseball is very mental. A lot of people say that golf messes up your baseball swing, but I really don’t think that’s the case. I’ve enjoyed playing golf a lot.”
When the college baseball season ended in April, Van Cleve was hoping that he would get a chance to face live pitching this summer.
That was not an easy prospect. Many cities shut down even little league baseball games because of the pandemic, and Major League Baseball itself was postponed until two weeks ago.
Van Cleve found a baseball home, though, with the Kalamazoo Growlers, a Michigan-based independent league team.
“I’ve been playing every single day since late June,” Van Cleve said.
It has been an adjustment, he said, switching from metal bats to wooden bats, but he has smashed a pair of doubles, a home run and 13 RBI over the past month for the Growlers.
“It’s starting to come on,” he said. “I’ve been getting more hits lately.”
Hits are important, but simply getting the swings against live pitching has been a plus for the rising first baseman and designated hitter.
“There are a lot of players in the country right now who aren’t getting any at-bats at all,” Van Cleve said. “They’re not getting to play at all. I’m getting to strengthen my game defensively, and I’m going to strengthen my game at the plate by getting at-bats and seeing more pitches and getting myself ready for this fall.”
The 6-foot-3, 260-pound right-handed power hitter will wrap up his time in Michigan this week and will return to Oxford to begin working out with the Rebels again in just a matter of days.
