Danny Altman Making the Most of His Opportunity for Baylor Baseball
With a runner on second base and the game tied at three apiece in the 11th inning in front of a sold-out Friday night crowd at UFCU Disch-Faulk Field on March 22, senior left fielder Danny Altman was in the middle of a heated at-bat against the Longhorns redshirt sophomore closer Gage Boehm.
After fouling off the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Danny was sitting slider, which was Boehm’s go-to pitch when he needed an out. With tensions high in both dugouts and the count full, Boehm hung a slider on the following pitch, and Danny took advantage, roping the go-ahead double into the left-center field gap to give the Bears a 4-3 victory and their first win in Austin since 2016.
“That was an unreal feeling,” Danny said with a smile reflecting on his clutch hit against Texas in a sit-down interview with SicEm365. “I remember stepping on second base, and I knew I got my job done. I looked at our dugout, and our section of fans, and everyone was on their feet. My adrenaline is pumping – their adrenaline is pumping – I just remember feeling great pride in helping my team. It was awesome.”
For Danny, doing whatever he can to help his team win is his top priority. After being thrust into an everyday role when three starters were lost for the season with an injury, the utility specialist has taken full advantage. Across 31 starts at three different positions – second base, left field and center field – Danny is fourth on the team in runs batted in (24) and fifth on the Bears in batting average (.276) and on-base percentage (.381).
“Danny comes to the yard every day and is willing to play anywhere,” head coach Mitch Thompson said. “He’s versatile for us and is able to play both in the infield and the outfield. We fiddle with him at a lot of different places – second [base], left field, center field. Oh, Ty Johnson is down for a couple of days? Well, who are we playing in center field? Let's put Altman out there. He's played really well everywhere we’ve played him.
He's handled himself well driving in runs, and we're throwing him in a tough spot because of our injury situation. Danny probably shouldn't be a four-hole hitter, but he's hitting in the four or five-hole for us every day, and he's handling it great.”
“I don’t like the reason that I’m playing,” Danny said. “I hate that my teammates went down, especially Scoob [Simmons], Jack [Little] and Gavin [Brzozowski] – I wish that wasn’t the reason I’m playing now. But when they did go down, it was my job to step up and play for them.
I take pride in coming to the field with a team mindset and a good attitude. No one wants to be in the locker room or be in the dugout with a guy who is always like, ‘Oh, man, we got to go do this; we got to go do that.’”
After playing sparingly last spring in the green and gold, Danny had a choice to make at the end of the season about whether he wanted to stay at Baylor for his senior year or go somewhere else where he likely could have been an everyday starter from the onset.
“The main reason [for staying] was because of Coach Thompson,” Danny said. “When I played at McLennan [Community College], he helped me get to where I'm at. I saw [returning to Baylor] as a loyalty thing. I like playing for him; I think he's a great coach. And so when the decision came, either to come back here or move off – it was a no-brainer in my mind. I knew what I wanted to do.”
Danny’s relationship with Thompson dates back to 2022, Thompson’s last season at MCC. Despite playing his freshman season at Lamar, Danny was forced to transfer after struggling to maintain his grades while managing the life of a student-athlete for the first time.
“Coach Thompson gave me a chance, and I was really grateful,” he said. “From the beginning, he told me that he wasn’t going to hold my hand and that this was something I had to fix. If I wanted the opportunity, he’d give it to me, but this was something I was going to have to work for.
I saw that as something that my father would do. He's very straightforward; he's not going to hold your hand or do anything like that, but if he can help, he will. And so that's really what I admire about Coach Thompson.”
During the 2022 season at MCC, Danny got his grades together and learned to balance being a student-athlete for the first time. On the field, he played in 59 games for the Highlanders and was third on the team in RBIs (53) and on-base percentage (.429) and fourth on the team in at-bats (178) and hits (51).
“I really had to learn time management while juggling baseball and school,” he said. “The one who helped me with that the most was my mom. She works a very high-octane job as a financial officer, where she has to be on top of her stuff all the time. So I thought ‘Who better to go to than her?’ Coach Thompson helped me on the field, and she helped me off the field to put those two together.”
Baseball is a family affair in the Altman family; Danny’s brother, Johnathan, started his career at Paris Junior College before transferring to Lamar for the final three years of his eligibility. In 2021, when the pair both played at Lamar, they would routinely cheer the other brother on when one was on the mound or at the plate.
“I fell in love with baseball when my brother got me into it,” Danny said. “I'm two and a half, three years younger than my brother, and when he started playing tee ball, I was around four or five years old. I remember seeing him do it, and I was a little bit of a copycat when I was a kid. I wanted to do whatever my brother wanted to do.
When he started playing, the second I turned old enough, I started playing baseball. And I remember we would play baseball together, we would play wiffle ball together, and that's how I ended up loving the sport was because I got to spend time with my brother.”
“I tease him, but I'm more serious than I'm joking; I tell Daniel all the time that the reason you're so good is because your brother pushed you that hard,” their father, Ed said. “He was just always trying to keep up with Johnathan.
And Johnathan was just far enough ahead of them that he could never quite catch up. And so I keep telling him that he owes more to his brother than he thinks. But they're at that age where they're still competing at everything. Maybe when they're my age, he will.”
When Thompson took over the reins of the Baylor program in the summer of 2022, Danny followed him across town but was unable to play in the fall after suffering a broken scaphoid bone in his right hand. Originally, Danny simply thought he had sprained his wrist and played through the entire postseason at MCC before learning the extent of his injury.
“It takes a while to get in the groove, especially when you're hitting,” he said. “We have 20-to-24 intrasquad scrimmages in that six-week period during the fall, and when you miss those games, it's really tough to come back from. You’re trying to get back on the level of where all the guys were at versus where I was at. It was it was really difficult. I’ve never had a major injury like that.”
When the season eventually came around, and he was healthy enough to play in the spring, he never felt quite right in the batter’s box. Across just 41 at-bats on the season, Danny started 1-for-17 at the plate and ended up collecting 10 base knocks and four RBIs.
So when the opportunity presented itself in the offseason to play at a lower level where he could start consistently, it seemed logical to consider his options. Still, Danny never wavered in his loyalty to Coach Thompson and Baylor.
“In the exit meeting, Coach Thompson was saying that there were a lot of guys coming in next year and that the competition was going to be much tougher than the previous fall. He was also talking about how they were trying to rebuild the program and turn it into a major school for baseball in the nation, and I respected him for it. I like to think I never shy away from a challenge, and so when he said that, I told him, ‘Bring it on.’”
“To Daniel's credit, even after his first year at Lamar, he still wanted to play at a Power Five school,” Ed said. “I counseled him, and he kind of stuck to his guns and was like, ‘No, I want to play at that level.’
The reason he didn't transfer was because he was where he wanted to be, and he was at the level of competition that he wanted to compete at. The transfer portal was never even a conversation in our household. And honestly, where he's at right now is perfect. He loves that team. He loves the guys on that team. He loves the school.”
When Danny returned to Baylor to compete this past fall, he didn’t have the strongest numbers in intrasquad scrimmages but believed he was in a position to be a viable depth piece. When spring practices began, he struggled immensely and began to spiral down the depth chart.
“It was one of the last intrasquads we had in the spring, and I hadn't gotten a hit,” Danny said. “I called my dad, and he could tell something was wrong. As a player, all you know how to do is compete, and when you compete your hardest and you don't succeed, it’s extremely frustrating. He could hear [the frustration in my voice].
He told me something I already knew, but it was nice to hear from someone else. He was like, ‘Just keep your nose on the grindstone. It's a struggle, but this is why you do it. Everyone loves to play baseball, but when you fail, seven out of 10 times, it can get really taxing on you. You just got to go with the highs and the lows.’”
Within the first week of the season, second baseman Jack Little (So.) and outfielders Hunter Simmons (Sr.) and Gavin Brzozowski (RSo.) were all lost for the year with injuries. Prior to the Oral Roberts series in early March, Danny was thrust into a starting role – opening the three-game set at second base and finishing the series in center field.
“I think about [my teammates not being able to play] every game,” Danny said. “But when those opportunities came to me, I knew it was my job to step up and provide for the team because they want to win just as much as I do. And if I can’t help them at the plate, then I will do my best defensively.
My dad taught me when I was young that there's a certain way you play sports; whether it's football, basketball or baseball, there's a right and a wrong way to play it. He taught me how to do that, and I kept going with that.”
In the sweep of Oral Roberts, Danny went 5-for-12 at the plate and scored four runs – almost matching his totals from the previous season in one weekend. From that point on, Thompson has kept him in the lineup, and Danny has relished in his opportunity and has seen time at three different positions.
Danny’s versatility all over the field spans back to his high school days at A&M Consolidated in College Station where he played middle infield. When he got to MCC in 2022, Thompson trusted him enough to use him all across the outfield. Even at his lowest moments during his injury and when he was at the bottom of the depth chart earlier this spring, he knew Thompson believed in him.
“When I played a year under Coach Thompson at MCC, I might have only missed a game or two,” Danny said. “But I knew that he knew what I could do. When I wasn't performing my best, I knew that he knew what my best looked like, and this wasn't it. I just had to give them a foot in the door to show him that I'm working my way back up to where I should be.”
Over the course of the season, Danny has had a knack for big moments, including a bases-clearing triple late in the game that put Baylor ahead against Houston Christian, 6-3. At one point during March, he plated a run in eight of ten contests.
“Anytime I've had big hits like that – I just remember my friends and my teammates and getting one step closer to our goal,” he said. “But I do enjoy those moments. I love going up there, and it's you versus [the pitcher]. It’s all about who's going to outlast who and who's going to perform. When those situations come up, I really love it.”
Danny and the Bears (19-20, 9-9) will look to get back on track in Big 12 play with a road series against West Virginia (23-16, 11-7), starting at 5:30 p.m. Friday night at Monongalia County Ballpark.