How the San Quentin prison baseball team sent one player to the pros

On Saturday mornings during baseball season at the San Quentin prison yard, 22 incarcerated athletes ditch their prison clothes to slip on black and orange baseball uniforms, a gift from the San Francisco Giants.

The prisoners hit, pitch, catch and throw like elite athletes. Some of them actually are. And were it not for the razor wire-topped wall standing between the ballfield and the peak of Mount Tamalpais on the horizon, a visitor might briefly forget they’re inside a prison.

This is the San Quentin Field of Dreams, a baseball field at California’s oldest prison and the home field for what’s believed to be the only prison baseball team in the U.S., a tradition that dates back a century.

“For three hours a couple of times a week, I’m not in prison, I’m on the baseball field,” said Martin DeWitt, a volunteer equipment manager who’s been with the San Quentin team since 2021.

Roster spots are difficult to come by; about 65 men compete for the 22 uniforms.

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The team is regularly coached by Richard Williams, who has been incarcerated for more than 30 years, with help from a volunteer, San Francisco resident Steve Reichardt. The team exclusively plays home games, but any competitive men’s team can visit the prison and take a whack at the San Quentin Giants.

Most of those teams will lose.

“They’re so fast and have so much power,” said James Stapleton, who plays for the Bay Area Vintage League, which visits San Quentin each year. (And lost 7-4 last month.) “They’re so grateful and gracious. Getting to know them on the field, laughing with them, getting stuck in a pickle, hugging afterwards when you’re out, it’s a very humanizing experience.”

Just five years ago, the team rattled off 33 straight wins and finished 38-2 as the “greatest incarcerated team ever,” said Reichardt, now in his 16th year as the coach.

It was an unforgettable season. And it launched a second chance for one young man, Austin Thurman, who dreamed of getting his life back on track, getting out of prison and perhaps one day playing professional baseball.

Thurman grew up in the Sacramento suburbs as a boy who didn’t fit in. Living in a predominantly white neighborhood, he felt too Black. When he moved to a predominantly Black high school, he didn’t feel Black enough. He began skipping lunch just to avoid sitting by himself.

But there was one way Thurman found he could fit in: playing sports at Inderkum High and “chasing that high of acceptance.”

After high school, he played baseball at two junior colleges, but was kicked off those teams after run-ins with the law for robbery and possession of a weapon.

But in 2016, Thurman was arrested after an altercation in Grass Valley ended with an 18-year-old being shot in the head. Convicted as an accessory to attempted murder, the 19-year-old Thurman was sentenced to four years at San Quentin.

“Every day, I’d go through my day, go back in my cell, reflect, talk to myself: ‘What’d you do wrong and how could you do better?’” he recalled.

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Thurman discovered that San Quentin had a baseball team, when he noticed a few guys carrying gloves. He tried out and made the team.

“It gave you a chance to be free, to play the game you loved,” he said. “It gives you a reason to do better.”

Thurman became the star center fielder on the squad that won 33 straight games.

“Having that brotherhood, having people depend on you, it was more than just a game,” he said.

When Thurman finished his sentence in 2020, he moved to Houston to reunite with his dad, Leon — and he tried out for the independent Pecos Spring League.

League commissioner Andrew Dunn noticed him right away, although he didn’t know his story.

“Here’s a guy who can play,” Dunn recalled thinking.

By the time he learned of Thurman’s past, Dunn was already committed to helping him. He guided Thurman, who signed first with Texas’ Galveston Sea Lions and later joined New Mexico’s Roswell Invaders.

Thurman had done the unthinkable: gone from San Quentin prison to professional baseball. He lived with a host family and earned just $50 to $100 a week, but he was leading the league, hitting .313 with six home runs and 36 stolen bases in 47 games.

”Everyone said he was going to win a triple crown,” Dunn said.  “He’s one hell of a player.”

But at age 23, Thurman said, “I felt like I was extremely old. These guys are coming from high school, college ball. I’m competing and doing better than most, but to make it to the next level, you need to be fully committed.”

Thurman retired from baseball at the end of that season to focus on finding a career and supporting his newborn daughter. After applying, interviewing and ultimately being rejected for 15 jobs, when background checks revealed his past, Thurman finally found steady work as a truck driver.

Giving up on his baseball dreams hurt, of course. “I knew in my heart that if I (had) stayed on the right track when I was younger, if I trained like that growing up…” he said.

Looking back now, Thurman isn’t sure he would have made it out of prison, if it wasn’t for the San Quentin baseball team.

“I would’ve had a lot more time on my hands, and I could’ve been doing stuff I shouldn’t have been doing,” he said. “The people in there serving a lot of time need those activities.”

Branden Terrell, a teammate at San Quentin who served a decade for voluntary manslaughter, was released in 2022 and helped organize the partnership with the San Francisco Giants, who now sponsor the team, provide equipment and occasionally visit.

“That baseball program changed my life, gave me purpose and value,” said Terrell, now a father of five.

This season, the San Quentin Giants are 20-9-3 with just one game remaining and dreams that endure.

“Something unique happens on this team, beginning from tryouts,” said shortstop Carrington Russelle. “We get out here, and we have a blast. But there’s so much that we learn out here on the field that is immediately transferable to everyday life.

“This team is full of men that are growing, that have made horrible decisions, but are trying to rebuild their lives,” he said. “We can’t undo the harm we’ve done, but we can be a living amends going forward.”