Fastballs & Fairways - Mitch Harris
From Chasin' Birdies by Jonathan Pepe & Ryan Bashour
February 12, 2026 · 1h 2m · Season 5 · Episode 21
About this episode
Mitch Harris shares his journey from the Naval Academy to MLB and his insights on success and perseverance.
We’re back this week on Chasin’ Birdies with a guest who knows a thing or two about perseverance and adversity. Mitch Harris joins us to catch up on life and tell his story. The former Navy Lieutenant was the first to be drafted in the MLB since 1921. The story of how they handled this is an interesting one. We open up and talk about the significant value taking preworkout has on your GI system. After this light talk, we turn the tables to getting into Mitch’s story. He attended the Naval Academy and wasn’t necessarily recruited to play baseball. After landing on the team, his future was about to unfold. We get into the ins and outs of attending the Naval Academy and what life was like. The episode turns into his story of being drafted and eventually landing on the mound as a relief pitcher. Along the way, Mitch realizes that success doesn’t have to just be a ‘me’ thing. With this philosophy in tow, he’s become a sought after speaker and wrote a book called My Private War - Relentlessly Chasing a Dream. After his career wrapped up, he has used his experiences to help people gain perspective on situations. We turn the episode over to some golf talk and finish with our standard…
People in this episode
Hosts: Jonathan Pepe, Ryan Bashour
Guest: Mitch Harris
Topics covered
- perseverance
- adversity
- baseball
- military
- golf
- inspiration
Keywords
- Mitch Harris
- Naval Academy
- MLB
- baseball
- perseverance
- golf
- inspiration
- success
- adversity
Sponsors
Bettinardi
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Naval Academy, WinstonCollection.com, redvanly.com
Books & works: My Private War - Relentlessly Chasing a Dream
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- IDAKA - The Launch of a Brand · March 26, 2026 · 1h 5m
- Back 9 Chop Session · March 12, 2026 · 46 min
- Banter Season Is Open · January 15, 2026 · 36 min
- Fairways Under Fire - Taylor Kinney · December 18, 2025 · 1h 28m
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