Story by Joey Miller, GatewayGrizzlies.com.
Remember the first time you were encouraged to dream big? Have you had a dream so passionate that every time you thought of it, you felt a robust fire in your heart? Illinois native Tate Wargo was raised in a family that cultivated his spark for baseball since birth.
Wargo was born in Springfield and raised his entire life in the same house in Benld, just about 45 minutes from Grizzlies Ballpark. Extracurricular activities in a small rural town were slim pickings, but baseball surrounded his entire household.
Tate’s father, Tim, and his older brother Trae had gotten into the game before him. Tim played shortstop at Lewis & Clark Community College in Godfrey for the 1986 and 1987 seasons before graduating and finishing his playing career at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His father coached the two boys, spending many summers playing wiffle ball and other recreational sports.
Trae and Tate didn’t fall too far from Tim’s tree as players, either, both playing shortstop and attending the same community college as their father. Trae played under the long-tenured Trailblazers coach and former Grizzlies pitching coach Randy Martz from 2012 to 2013, and just four years after his final season there, Tate followed the fraternal legacy under Martz.
Coming into Tate’s sophomore season, Martz introduced a new assistant coach in Alex Ferguson who, in tandem, built him into a more experienced everyday player.
“They’re good mentors and they helped me understand the game a little bit more,” Wargo reflected about his two coaches.
The intersection of time between Coach Ferguson and Tate Wargo at LCCC was brief, but in that one season, Ferguson saw a young player who showed a lot of commitment.
“He was a guy who was always there early, getting early work, spending lots of time in the cage,” Ferguson said.
Tate’s two seasons in Godfrey proved to be enough to lift him into a role at an NCAA Division I program at the University of Akron, where he finished his collegiate career with the Zips from 2020 to 2022, including an extra season as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After his collegiate career came to a close, Wargo headed back to his hometown to figure out his life beyond baseball. Despite a solid five years as an everyday starter, the dream of playing professional baseball was beginning to dwindle.
“The drive to stay on the grind with baseball, it was kind of diminishing,” Wargo said. “I could tell that it was time to move on.”
The next step for Wargo was to exchange his player dreams for a coaching one, signing on as a volunteer coach at his alma mater, Gillespie High School. Much like his father, Tate was accepting his coaching role, especially since his playing days were drifting further into the rearview.
Since his coaching gig was unpaid, Wargo worked on the gameday guest experience staff for St. Louis City SC, as well as occasional landscaping gigs.
“I had a couple of lawns that I mowed around Benld and Gillespie and whatnot,” Wargo said.
However, Wargo knew he needed to look for something more long-term, so he began filling in as a substitute teacher at Gillespie, and even received his teaching license with a plan to become a physical education instructor.
Life after baseball for Tate Wargo was becoming a reality, but after two years away from playing, he wasn’t quite ready to give up on his passion.
“My thought process at the end of my college career was to hang it up, but I remained active, got into pickleball with [my] buddies, got into golf…my body just felt good,” Wargo said. “I felt like there was more in the tank — [it] started a fire burning under [my] butt a little bit, and that’s when I started to look for any opportunities to keep on playing baseball.”
In 2023, Wargo reached out to his old coach, who was now working for the Gateway Grizzlies in his second season under manager Steve Brook.
“He had asked about a tryout with Gateway,” Ferguson said. “It ended up getting cancelled, so we actually talked about the California Winter League.”
The California Winter League has been the Official Winter League of the Frontier League since 2015. Each team is required to bring at least one player from the CWL each year into spring training.
Wargo took Ferguson’s advice, and in January, he signed up to join the Alberta Grizzly in the CWL. For the first time since 2022, Wargo was playing baseball competitively again, and the flame was reignited. In his two months with Alberta, Wargo put up an impressive .412 batting average with four RBI and six stolen bases.
During the season, one of Wargo’s coaches with Alberta gave Grizzlies manager Steve Brook a call, and Brook turned to Ferguson for a scouting report. A short time later, with the 2024 CWL season heading into the playoffs, Wargo received a life-changing notification.
“I remember checking my phone, that’s when I saw the message from Brook,” Wargo said. “He wanted to give me an opportunity to play for him.”
Wargo joined the spring training roster and began working out with the Grizzlies in April. He came in with the knowledge that many of the infielders from the 2023 West Division champion team would be returning, giving him an uphill battle from the jump. With that, it took Wargo some time to get acclimated.
“From the beginning, I struggled a little bit and had to make some adjustments to see the ball and fix my contact points,” Wargo said.
Wargo knew there were no guarantees, but he was a standout in the early exhibitions against the Evansville Otters, and quickly gained the good graces of the coaching staff.
“I know Steve was high on him, and same with Kyle [Gaedele],” Ferguson said. “They both like how he played in those games.”
With the regular season swiftly approaching, and Brook needing to finalize his roster for opening day, the third-year Grizzlies manager was faced with a tough decision.
“It [came] down to the money we had to spend,” Brook mentioned. “It [came] down to limited spaces, [and] if we were going to [carry] an extra pitcher or that extra [position] player.”
On May 4, just two days before Wargo’s 25th birthday, Brook brought the spring training standout into his office to deliver the news that he was being released, but with positive feedback.
“I told him that he had a great camp, that we loved him as a player… that he’d be a guy that we wanted to bring back if a need opened up, and he was really receptive to that,” Brook recalled.
Wargo cleared out his locker and headed home. After finally getting back into the game he left behind two years ago, he was officially teamless heading into the summer.
“It was a big bummer for sure,” Wargo said. “It was a tough pill to swallow, but I couldn’t let that get me down too much.”
Life continued on for Wargo, but on June 11, his luck came around. While playing a round of golf, working on the fifth hole, he checked his phone and saw a text message from Alex Ferguson:
“Hey, we had two guys, two second basemen who went down, looking for a guy to fill in, would you be interested in coming back?”
Wargo ecstatically replied, “Absolutely.”
He left the golf course immediately, went home to change, and drove straight to Sauget, his heart racing the entire way. He showed up to Grizzlies Ballpark after the conclusion of a home game to sign his contract, get his gear, and head back to Benld with the expectation that in less than 24 hours, he would be a professional baseball player.
The next day, he arrived at the ballpark early, gear in hand, and approached his locker with his number 10 jersey awaiting him. Brook posted the starters for the midweek morning game, and on that lineup card in the eighth spot starting at second base, it read “Wargo” in black ink. In the bottom of the seventh that same day, Wargo got a single into left field for his first professional hit.
Standing on first base, his family in the crowd cheering, he had officially made it.
“That fire, again, just started to get a little bigger and bigger,” Wargo said.
With the Grizzlies in the middle of the toughest stretch of their season, Wargo tried to fit the role his team needed him to play. In the first nine games of his professional career, he had at least one hit in every single contest.
“I was just doing what I could to help the team win in those situations,” Wargo said. “Doing hit-and-runs, sacrifice bunting, anything I could just to help us get some more runs and get some more Ws.”
On June 20, a little over a week into his career, the Grizzlies were in Washington, Pennsylvania playing the first-place Wild Things. Tied at 1-1, the game headed into sudden death. Washington elected to pitch, giving Gateway the chance to win the series if they could score the free baserunner Cole Brannen, who started the inning at first.
A sacrifice bunt moved Brannen into scoring position at second base, and Wargo stepped up to the plate. On the mound for Washington was Justin Goosen-Brown, the very same pitcher against whom Wargo recorded his first hit the previous week. With the game on the line, the rookie had the spotlight.
The first pitch was a slider outside that was called strike one. The next pitch was the same, further away, but Wargo widened his eyes and swung.
“It probably would’ve been a ball, but I saw it pretty well and was able to take it that way where it got past the first baseman, and [Brannen] did the rest,” Wargo said.
Wargo was rushed by his teammates rounding first after the walkoff single, and that fateful night, the boy from Benld became a hero.
“When I made my choice to get back into baseball, there were a lot of sacrifices that I had to make,” Wargo said. “There’s just kind of a moment where you say [this was all] worth it. Just the emotions I felt, the support I was getting from all over.”
Heading into the All-Star Break, Tate Wargo has passed his one-month mark as a professional baseball player. Through all the highs and lows he has endured over the last few years, being overlooked and turned down, getting ready to put his playing career behind him, in just the past few months, his life has turned around.
“There [are] a lot of obstacles that go on [in] life,” Wargo said. “I’ve had a lot of things that I’ve overcome to stay on this kind of path. You just [have] to know what you want and go for it.”
Since his debut, the scrappy, 5’8″ defensive-minded utility player has become a fan favorite. While not naturally a talkative man, he does his best to be a positive beacon in the clubhouse and in the dugout, and loves signing autographs for young fans at the ballpark before and after each game.
“I enjoy helping out others, and trying to be a role model for the younger generation, for someone to look up to,” Wargo said.
His story is one of perseverance and faith, someone who comes from humble beginnings and carries a diligent work ethic. A man who never quit on himself, even when others wrote him off.
Tate Wargo is proof that no matter what others may tell you, life can change at any moment, as long as you never extinguish that fire within yourself.
