On June 6, former EIU pitcher Hayden Birdsong stepped out on Wrigley Field to the pitching mound.
Wearing his San Francisco Giants jersey with “Birdsong” in big letters on the back above the number 60, the Mattoon native was living out his lifelong dream as his family cheered him on from the stands.
“Couldn’t have written it any better,” Birdsong said. “It was like a storybook, kind of like a fairytale in a way.”
Let’s backtrack for a bit to see how Birdsong got to this moment:
Twenty minutes west from Eastern’s campus, Birdsong played high school baseball at Mattoon High School.
While playing for the Green Waves, Birdsong helped the team win the 2019 Apollo Conference Championship while being named in the conference’s First Team at the end of the season.
After high school, Birdsong committed to Lake Land College, the junior college 10 minutes away from the high school. At Lake Land, Birdsong started in three games and recorded a 1-2 record with 20 strikeouts in a span of 15 innings. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the season was cut short, and Lake Land played less than 20 games in 2020.
After the National Collegiate Athletic Association granted numerous athletes an extra year of eligibility due to the pandemic, Birdsong decided to play at Eastern for manager Jason Anderson.
“Eastern came calling pretty quick through the fall,” Birdsong said. “It was my only Division I offer, and I liked it because it was a great opportunity for me. I heard good things at EIU and decided to do it.”
Because Eastern was close to Birdsong’s home, he knew he could see his family and friends more often than if he went to a school further away.
During the 2021 season, Birdsong made 14 appearances and five starts with the Panthers finishing with and earned run average of 9.76 in a span of 27.2 innings. The next season went differently.
As a sophomore, Birdsong led the team with an ERA of 3.35 in a span of 45.2 innings. Birdsong ended the season with a 5-4 record and 66 strikeouts.
There was a significant improvement from Birdsong in the span of one year. Throughout his time at Eastern, Birdsong gave Anderson credit for his help in his career.
“I struggled a little bit, and he set me aside, saying, ‘Hey, figure your stuff out then you can get back on the mound,’” Birdsong said. “It was a learning experience for me, and I realized I just needed to lock it in and play baseball instead of worrying about all the other little stuff.”
Redshirt senior outfielder Dylan Drumke was teammates with Birdsong for two years, and he said he saw the improvements Birdsong made.
“Hayden [Birdsong] was a cool dude first and then a dawg on the mound second,” Drumke said. “Never wavered from a hard work standpoint, always grinding to get to the best possible spot he could, which is why he is where he is today.”
After his sophomore season, Birdsong announced his decision to declare for the MLB draft. When draft day rolled around, Birdsong was drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the sixth round as the 196th overall pick.
“I was expecting anywhere from the 10th to the 12th round or beyond that,” Birdsong said. “[The Giants] called earlier, and I took it. I just asked them when I needed to be out, and they said about three days, so it was a very quick turnaround.”
In those three days, Birdsong packed up everything he needed and moved to the West Coast to start off in the Minor Leagues. Reflecting on his time there, Birdsong said it was pretty short lived because it went by quickly.
Birdsong first started with the San Jose Giants, the San Francisco Giant’s Single-A affiliate.
“It was my whole draft class, so I got to know those guys pretty well, so it felt like I was almost in college again with a bunch of guys I see all the time,” Birdsong said. “It was really fun. I threw well, and then I got moved up.”
Then, Birdsong got moved up to the Giants’ High-A affiliate, the Eugene Emeralds in Eugene, Oregon. At the end of the year, Birdsong moved to Richmond, Virginia, to play for the Richmond Flying Squirrels, the Giants’ Double-A affiliate.
Moving from California to Oregon to Virginia in a span of months can be overwhelming, but for Birdsong, he said he continued to remain optimistic about the changes.
“San Jose was great, Eugene was great and at the end of the year, I got to Richmond all the way across the other side of the country,” Birdsong said. “It was very different.”
After his stint in with the Flying Squirrels, Birdsong got moved up to the Triple-A affiliate for the Giants, the Sacramento River Cats. For two weeks.
“I had two starts, and then they called me up,” Birdsong said. “It was kind of out of nowhere. I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t throwing the greatest at the time. It was my first two outings in Triple A, and it’s very different baseball up there.”
Suddenly, the San Francisco Giants needed another pitcher, and then ultimately thought Birdsong was ready to move up to the highest level: the Major Leagues.
On the second day he was there, which happened to be game day, Birdsong got an unexpected call.
“They said, ‘Hey, pack your stuff, you’re going to the field,’ and I was like, ‘What?’,” he said. “They were like, ‘Yeah, we’re getting you on a flight in about two hours,’ so I got on the flight, went to San Francisco and hung out for the game.”
Gearing up for his debut in Wrigley Field, Birdsong had close family in attendance for the game. One person in particular flew out to Chicago as soon as she found out: his girlfriend of four years, Mia Dinaso.
“I was actually in Boston on vacation at a Red Sox’s game,” Dinaso said. “I had to fly out of Boston at 3 in the morning, but it was so fun.”
Along with Dinaso, Birdsong’s close family traveled to see Birdsong pitch against the Cubs. Birdsong pitched in 4.2 innings recording a 5.79 ERA.
“I was excited more because it was my debut more than I was pitching against the Cubs because I’m a Giant now, so it’s just another team I get to play against, and I had to go out there and perform to get a win for the team,” Birdsong said.
Watching her boyfriend play in his first Major League game, Dinaso said she was in awe while she watched Birdsong play.
“He’s the most deserving person,” Dinaso said. “I knew that this moment is exactly what he had been working at his whole career; I was just so happy for him. It’s such a grind and people don’t really see the behind-the-scenes perspective I see.”
Throughout the rest of the season, Birdsong recorded an ERA of 4.75 in a span of 72 innings throughout 16 games.
Birdsong’s first recorded win was against the Atlanta Braves on July 2, 2024. The Giants won the game 5-3.
“I was just happy to go five [innings] and then give our team a chance to win because it was a 3-2 ballgame whenever I came out,” Birdsong said. “I was happy coach [J.P Martinez] let me stay in there and trusted me enough to get some of those big leverage outs.”
After playing with the Giants for the season, Birdsong said he enjoys the environment within the team.
“It’s a bunch of grown men that sometimes act like kids, but at the same time when they need to be grown men, they’re grown men,” he said. “Everybody is there to win, and that’s what we want to do.”
The Giants finished the 2024 season with an 80-82 record finishing in fourth place in the National League West Division.
Dinaso said Birdsong has grown a lot as a baseball player but also as a person.
“It definitely made him grow up fast,” she said. “He learned quickly that he’s an adult now and has to hold himself accountable. He’s very disciplined.”
Reflecting on his first season in the Major Leagues, Birdsong said the moment he knew he made it was during his last start of the year against the St. Louis Cardinals. He pitched for 4.1 innings recording 11 strikeouts.
As the coaches took Birdsong out for the remainder of the game, he could hear the roar of cheers from the crowd in Oracle Park.
“It was cool to see, and it was one of those things where I realized that people want me here, and they like me,” Birdsong said. “It made me realize I can do this, and this is what I want to do. It’s a dream come true.”
Zaria Flippin can be reached at 581-2812 or at zhflippin@eiu.edu.
