PASADENA, Calif. • When the Navy wouldn’t let Mitch Harris leave it for baseball, Mitch Harris made sure to bring baseball with him.
He wasn’t going to be inactive on active duty.
For five years and a handful of deployments around the world, Harris served his country with honor and brought two baseball gloves and a few baseballs so that he could do whatever possible to keep his arm in shape and his professional chances afloat. On one deployment, the Naval Academy grad found a catcher, the ship’s cook. Whenever he had leave, he would do what he could to report to Jupiter, Fla.