EAST NORRITON, Pa. _ In one corner of Athletes Academy, a sports-training facility in East Norriton, Domonic Brown was back in a batting cage Tuesday afternoon. Yes, that Domonic Brown. His head and eyes flitted back and forth from Max Hitman _ a high school senior, a St. Joseph's University recruit, and Brown's star pupil _ to a computer screen above the cage, to a HitTrax program showing the data of Hitman's every swing off a batting tee: his bat speed, the ball's exit velocity, the distance it would have traveled. One of Hitman's cuts produced a piercing sound, like pipe on pipe, and what would have been a 194-foot line drive to left-center field. "Not bad," Brown said. In another corner of the facility, Domonic Brown Jr., age 2, kept shooting a little basketball through a little basketball hoop. He couldn't miss. His dad was supposed to be like that, too.
This is Brown's new career, new beginning, now that he is 32: here in suburban Philadelphia, years after his flaming fall from nascent greatness to disappointment with the Phillies, as a private hitting instructor. He had been a ballyhooed prospect, billed as the bridge from Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard to the next era of Phillies excellence, 6-foot-6 with that liquid, left-handed swing, and he'd had that incredible period in 2013 that made everyone believe stardom was inevitable for him: 12 home runs in May, 11 in a 15-game stretch, 27 for the season, a spot on the National League All-Star team.
He was never so good again. He hit .235 with 10 home runs in 2014, then .228 with five home runs in 2015, injuries and a stint at triple A limiting him to 63 games. The Phillies released him. He ricocheted around pro ball: the Toronto Blue Jays' and Colorado Rockies' systems, the Pacific Coast League, four teams in Mexico, one in the Dominican Republic, launching 49 home runs and slugging .485 over the last two years at those lower levels. He rediscovered his swing, just too late.
He moved back to the region last year, with his wife, Stephanie, who is an alumnus of Plymouth Whitemarsh High School in Plymouth Meeting, and their three children. Looking for a place to hit during the winter, he found Athletes Academy, started offering tips to teenagers once his own sessions in the cage were finished, and decided after a while that he enjoyed teaching enough to retire from playing altogether. The facility's owner, Cherifa Howarth, was impressed enough to hire him. Every day, he spends hours in the cage, with the kids he coaches and the HitTrax and a black day planner into which he scribbles any thought about hitting that strikes him. He spoke at length Tuesday about everything that led him there. His comments have been edited for clarity.
