Faith, Family, and a Fastball: The Aaron Barrett Story!
Born in a small town in Indiana, sports and competition always played a significant role in Aaron Barrett’s life. The son of a kindergarten teacher and a sprinkler installation engineer, Aaron has two brothers—one older, one younger—so winning and jostling for bragging rights were always in the family mix. The Barretts are also a large extended family, meaning get-togethers with aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews, and nieces were always competitive affairs too.
Getting to the top of the heap—what pro-athletes call “climbing the mountain”—was always going to be a tough task, but Aaron’s journey there is a particularly remarkable one because he did it twice.
Talking to Aaron, you get a feel for how he has addressed the challenges he has faced and repeatedly overcome. He talks about faith, about believing that “things happen for a reason,” and how he has been surrounded by good people whose advice he was grateful to accept.
Aaron’s road to the top of his mountain began at school. Describing himself as “not-particularly-gifted,” he worked hard and got good grades. He enjoyed playing all sports—basketball, of course, featured highly in Indiana—without really excelling at one. What he knew he could do, though, was throw a ball really hard.
This talent was spotted by local baseball coaches who worked with Aaron on improving the mechanics of his pitch and adding technique and skill to the raw power he was able to generate.
Unlike other professional athletes who were spotted early, shipped off to specialist camps, and shaped and molded for great things from a very early age, Aaron followed a more traditional route, playing for local teams, the school, and thinking about getting into a college team. He enjoyed time around his family too, and recalled one summer break when the Barretts went to a little place called Seaside on Florida’s Gulf Coast. “It felt right. We did all those things kids do on holiday—went crabbing, bike riding, playing on the beach—I felt grounded there.”
Under the continued guidance of his two coaches, Aaron worked his way through high school baseball and accepted a place at a community college in neighboring Illinois where he played two seasons for the Wabash Valley Warriors. His game was improving; he threw his first 90 mph ball in his freshman year and hit 95 mph in his sophomore season. The pitcher was soon spotted by pro-ball teams and by scouts from universities competing in higher divisions of the college sports pyramid.
Aaron accepted an offer to complete his junior and senior years at Ole Miss and, other than that one trip to Seaside, moved south for the first time in his life. Aaron had grown up in a diverse school system and had friends from a range of different communities. Arriving in Oxford, Mississippi, in his sneakers, cut-off denims, and Indiana shirt, Aaron cut an odd figure amongst the preppy-types whose families had been attending Ole Miss for generations.
His game struggled too. Starting his junior season as the #1 pitcher, he ended it as a reliever, but Aaron was stoic and focused on what he could control. He continued to get good grades, knowing that while his dream of perhaps making a living from playing baseball took shape, he would need something to fall back on, just in case.
He also met his future wife Kendyl at this time, and her guidance, support, and influence have been a huge part of Aaron’s success.
In his senior season, his pitching game really started to flourish. Aaron had been drafted in 2008 and again in 2009 but chose not to sign any contracts. When telling the story, Aaron again says things happen for a reason and notes that if he had accepted either move to the Minnesota Twins or the Texas Rangers, he wouldn’t have met Kendyl, nor had his best season, which attracted the attention of the Washington Nationals.
Upon arriving in D.C. in 2010, Aaron was immediately dispatched to learn his trade in the minor leagues. Playing for the Harrisburg Senators, Aaron was used as a closing pitcher, called upon to shut games down and deliver the win. Newly married, Kendyl and Aaron moved to Florida’s Scenic Highway 30A full-time. Kendyl accepted a job as an event planner with property and hospitality group St Joe and worked for local restaurateur Dave Rauschkalb at Bud and Alley’s.
But adversity struck again. A few games into his first professional season, Aaron suffered what ball players call “the yips”—the inability to control the baseball. While Aaron focused on fixing his game, Kendyl ensured they had a solid foundation, grounding them firmly in the sand along the Emerald Coast.
From this solid base, Aaron’s arm improved. He was recognized as an All-Star player and quickly became a prospect for the major leagues. Invited to join the Nationals’ Major League Spring Training, Aaron impressed and was added to the 40-man squad for 2014 and, in the opening game of that season, came out of the bullpen to strike out two and pick up his first major league win.
Aaron had reached his mountain top. He was a professional athlete, playing a game he loved, for a franchise in the nation’s capital. Happy days.
But there were new challenges awaiting Aaron. Early in the 2015 season, Aaron reported discomfort in his elbow and was put on the disabled list. The Nationals decided he should undergo a common but grueling surgery called Tommy John, named after the first baseball player to undergo it, where the ligaments from one arm are removed to replace the damaged ones in the other.
Recovery and recuperation were taking place at the Nationals’ complex in Viera Beach, Florida when in July 2016, Aaron suffered a further setback. Pitching his fastball, he managed to break his arm, creating damage so intense the surgeon deployed to fix it likened it to the injuries normally suffered in a car crash, requiring two metal plates and sixteen screws.
But once again, Aaron’s faith that “there was a plan” prevented him from quitting on his dream of playing in the major leagues.
He recognized that while he was on the long-term injured list, Kendyl was going to be the chief breadwinner. She gave their family security, and her encouragement and strength bolstered his faith that this was all happening for a reason.
He set himself the target of securing a renewed contract in 2017, but medical scans indicated the injury wasn’t healing as it should. On the advice of doctors and coaches, Aaron handed the ball back and stopped pitching entirely for the remainder of the 2017 season.
Things were also changing for Aaron off the field as Kendyl was now pregnant with their first child. Aaron recognized he now had additional responsibilities. But this seems to have just spurred him on further. He knew he would have to climb that mountain again.
When Aaron talks about this moment, he tears up; it’s clearly still an emotional topic for him. He explains that he realized the sacrifices so many people had made to get him this far, that this was his chosen livelihood, it was how he was going to make a living and support his new family, and to achieve that he had to get back to the major leagues.
He also knew he didn’t want his newborn daughter to not see her dad play professional baseball; he didn’t want to miss out on that moment, being resigned to just telling stories of what could have been.
Aaron doubled down on his efforts in rehab, listening to the advice of those around him. He slowly but steadily began to get his pitching arm back. Still under contract with the Nationals, he threw his first professional pitch since early 2015, during a game for the Auburn DoubleDays, on November 2, 2018. That success was followed by even better news: the Nationals agreed to a new contract, which gave Aaron the option to attend Major League Spring Training again.
Aaron was back at the base of the mountain about to try for a second ascent. In a remarkable repeat of his earlier journey, Aaron made his way back to the Harrisburg Senators to begin building up his strength and recovering that power and velocity that made him a successful closer.
He had hoped for a good season… but had a great one. He led the minor leagues in saves and set a new Senators’ record in the process. As the regular season drew to a close, Senators’ manager Matt LeCroy revealed that the Nationals had been hatching a plan and on September 4, 2019, more than four years since his second attempt to tackle the challenge had begun, they offered Aaron a major league contract again.
He was back. Not only had he overcome the physical obstacles of a serious injury, but buoyed by the support of his wife and family, he had weathered the mental and emotional anguish and uncertainty that can derail so many professional sportsmen and women dealing with setbacks.
Three days later, Aaron had the opportunity to play Major League professional baseball again, and this time in front of his new family. He took to the mound and threw his first pitch, the second time around, to record a scoreless inning with a strikeout against Ronald Acuna Jr.
Aaron defines that moment as perhaps his peak achievement. Walking off the field in Atlanta and into the tunnel where his wife and daughter were waiting for him is something he still counts as one of his greatest moments. But that wasn’t the only success that season—the Washington Nationals won a wild card berth in the postseason and against all odds went all the way to win the 2019 World Series.
Aaron now has a Winners’ Trophy and World Series ring as reminders that he not only scaled the mountain again but also reached the absolute peak of his sport. Aaron retired from baseball the following year and has now taken a position with the Philadelphia Phillies franchise, working with pitchers recovering from injury. This was a wise recruitment by the ball team, because for any individual struggling with injury or doubt, could there be a better role model to help them through?
Aaron and his family now live full-time along 30A. It is a place that, through all the turmoil and change, has provided them with a solid foundation over the years. Having already achieved so much, there are new opportunities and challenges ahead, and the family has chosen Florida’s Gulf Coast as the place to start building the next chapter of their lives.
New opportunities are already in the works. Kendyl runs The Spark Collection, a bespoke jewelry business, and Aaron’s remarkable story is the focus of a documentary being made and scheduled for broadcast in spring 2025.
Aaron and Kendyl are grateful for their success. When they watch their children play on the sugar white sands of 30A, they give thanks for the opportunities they have been blessed with. He knows none of this would have been possible without Kendyl’s support or their unbending belief as a couple that “things happen for a reason.”
But their story also shares a lesson of perseverance and resolve if you are going to make your dreams come true.
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