A's starter Koenig helped put Golden State Collegiate Baseball League on the map

As 43 young Seagulls players dug into a buffet at Buffalo Wild Wings in Daly City, they watched the overhead TV monitors with much enthusiasm as the late-blooming 28-year-old Koenig — who pitched for the Seagulls’ collegiate team from 2015-16 — stood larger than life as he climbed the mound of Truist Park in Atlanta.

“It was cool to see him continue to chase his dreams,” Seagulls co-founder Marc Caviglia said.

The Seagulls debuted in 2003 as a collegiate team and bounced around various leagues before joining the Golden State Collegiate Baseball League in 2013 when Caviglia co-founded the league with Richard Ruiz. Prior to growing the organization into a youth baseball academy, the collegiate team was composed of mostly regional players, with the only national recognition coming in 2014, when catcher Troy Dixon was selected as a Summer Collegiate All-American.

Koenig put the GSCBL on the map, though, when he set the GSCBL single-season records for wins and for strikeouts during his second summer with the Seagulls in 2016. He became the league’s first-ever first-team selection as a Summer Collegiate All-American, joining a list historically dominated by the likes of the powerhouse Cape Cod and Northwoods leagues.

“Absolutely,” Caviglia said. “I think he really helped put the league on the map. He really helped also put the Seagulls organization on the map.”

A native of Aptos, Koenig has long been a one-man traveling band. He played at three different colleges — Central Arizona College, Old Dominion and Cal State Monterey Bay — then went undrafted, only to play for four different independent teams before signing a minor league contract with the A’s just prior to the pandemic in 2020.

“I was telling the boys out there today before we ate,” Caviglia said, “it’s one of those things where Jared was told many a times that he wasn’t good enough to be a big leaguer and maybe he should start doing something else … but he exemplifies what hard work can do, what gambling on yourself can do and what trusting in your abilities can do.”

It was after a subpar season at Old Dominion in 2015 that he found his way to the GSCBL, and to the San Francisco Seagulls, who at the time played their home games at the quiet nook of Fairmont Field in Pacifica.

“He had the presence,” Caviglia said. “Here steps in a 6-foot-5, 215-pound lefty at the time who has an upper 80s fastball with a really good breaking ball. He also had not just the presence, but he also had the ‘it’ factor. He had a good idea at that age not only what he wanted to do, but what he was trying to do as a pitcher.”

As a senior at the NCAA Division II program at Cal State Monterey Bay, he finally locked into a rhythm as a starting pitcher, making 14 appearances, all as a starting pitcher. It’s a rhythm he continued into the summer of 2016 with the Seagulls.

“That’s when we really saw that next step,” Caviglia said. “Every time he took the mound, it was seven-plus innings, two or three hits allowed … low walk totals, double-digit strikeouts. It was one of those things where, I think it was maybe every Saturday he took the ball for us for eight weeks in the summer, and we knew we were only going to need to get two runs.”

Yet it would be another five years before Koenig made his affiliated professional debut in 2021. He waited out he lost pandemic season of 2020 and made his mark at Oakland Double-A affiliate Midland last season, going 7-5 with a 3.26 ERA in 24 appearances.

After eight starts at Triple-A Las Vegas this season, the wheels were set in motion Sunday for Koenig’s big league call-up when A’s manager Mark Kotsay announced Sunday that Koenig was slated as Oakland’s starting pitcher for Wednesday in Atlanta.

That’s when Caviglia made a corresponding move — adjourning Wednesday’s practice for the Seagulls Youth Academy, instead taking 43 players for a buffalo wing buffet to watch Koenig’s debut.

“For me personally, it’s really cool to see him persevere and to be able to wear a big league uniform,” Caviglia said. “Because I think he exemplifies what it is to be a big leaguer on and off the field, and you couldn’t ask for a better human being … and teammate to help pave our path to success to represent the Seagulls at the highest of levels.”