Brandywine's Michael DeGirolamo can play baseball and play guitar with equal ease

By LARKIN RICHARDS

This story is the fifth and final in a series of features submitted by Penn State University Park students taking a sports journalism course.

From the clubhouse to the stage, Michael DeGirolamo looks forward to putting on a show. With either a glove or guitar in hand, he’s performance ready.

The Penn State Brandywine junior infielder from Frederick, Maryland, transferred to the commonwealth campus from Division III power Hood College with hopes of entering the MLB. But after tearing his rotator cuff, rehabilitation at Brandywine was his introduction to the 2022 season.

Within the season, DeGirolamo made his debut on Feb. 19 with two hits and three runs in a victory over Rosemont. Overall, he’s had 24 appearances, primarily at third base. He batted .291 with 16 hits, nine RBI and eight runs scored.

Although DeGirolamo completed a full season last spring, he sensed that playing in the big leagues was no longer in his future after his injury. With a dream like that taken away from him, another dream in his life started taking precedence.

“I’ve been playing music my whole life. My dad was a professional musician, he’s a drummer,” he said. “He played on a whole bunch of different tours. And then I learned how to play the piano and drums pretty well growing up.”

His parents met when his father was an accompanying drummer for a circus act, and his mother was a trapeze artist within her family’s circus. After his parents started dating, his father joined the circus industry as a catcher, spotting the acrobats.

DeGirolamo lived the early years of his life traveling the country because of the family circus and music lifestyle, making many childhood memories of petting tiger cubs and chimpanzees. He looked up to his parents because of their ambitious spirits.

“As we got older, we moved to Maryland, which is where I grew up. My dad would still play the drums and would travel to different places. I would get to go with them and see all the bands and then play some gigs with them. That was before I started singing, so I was just doing instruments then.

“It was awesome. I got to see and be around a lot of really, really cool things growing up and see a lot of really cool things that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise,” he said.

Before DeGirolamo’s father entered the entertainment business, he was a player within the minor league system for the Boston Red Sox. As DeGirolamo got older, he started recognizing the true father-son similarities. Baseball entered his life just the same as music.

“I’ve been playing baseball for as long as I can remember,” he said. “That’s always what I wanted to do growing up.”

As his love for baseball grew deeper, the harder he worked to play his best. DeGirolamo was anticipating getting drafted after college ball, but as the spring 2020 season started during his senior year of high school, the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to shift visions.

“When quarantine started, I was like, ‘You know, this is what it’s going to be like without any baseball because I couldn’t do anything,’” he said. So he started switching gears.

Following quarantine, DeGirolamo began writing songs and realized music was going to work out “a lot better than he thought it would.” After questioning what life would be like without baseball and recovering from his injury, DeGirolamo started booking gigs and traveling for performances, all while being an active college baseball player and a neuropsychology major.

DeGirolamo briefly thought about moving to Nashville for the summer because of the experiences he had performing there, especially with his memories of putting on a show for a few thousand people. For now, he has songs written and ready to record but wants to find the perfect way to execute them. DeGirolamo toys with the option of recording the songs himself and building a fanbase, or ghostwriting for other big country artists while he tackles his schoolwork.

Being a full-time student, athlete and musician – DeGirolamo said he’s had interest from Warner Records, though he hasn’t been signed -- has pushed him to the limits of splitting time at practice, completing homework, and getting songs out for listeners to stream.

“My grandma always told me to get as big as I can with music because I can do it for the rest of my life,” he said. “I feel like I’m floating when I’m on stage.”