Whether it was Oak Park and River Forest High School baseball or adult softball, Andrew Hagins was the kind of player with big-time power. In both venues, his home runs were the stuff of legend.
“There was a time where we had a game at Glenbard West,” recalled his close friend and teammate Bobby Fratto, “he hit a ball so far, even though it went foul it was close to 500 feet. We talked about it on the bench and the bus ride back.”
Hagins graduated from OPRF in 2006, but his exploits with power hitting extended to his time as a softball player for the Park District of Oak Park. Fratto remembers that, too.
“He made a 14-inch softball look like someone was hitting a golf ball with a driver,” he said. “Absolute strength and power he had and how majestic he made every swing look was incredible. There would be times people on the other field would stop and watch him hit it.”
But Hagins, who died in December 2023, had another superpower beyond his ability to hit prodigious home runs, and that was how selfless and caring he was to other people and animals, as a supporter of the Animal Care League in Oak Park.
That’s what will be remembered most on Saturday at the third annual Andrew Hagins Day, when the current OPRF baseball team will face off against Hinsdale South at 10:30 a.m. on the varsity baseball field at Lake Street and East Avenue.
In addition to a good prep ballgame, a $1,000 scholarship from the Hagins family will be given to a Huskies player. Funding comes in part from sales of Andrew Hagins Day T-shirts, with a whopping 165 purchased this year.
“We wanted to keep his legacy alive, not only as a player through the scholarship, but through the player he was,” Hagins’ mom Toni said, “the type of person that didn’t get a big head, a true teammate. What better way to give back to a player that had some of the traits Andrew possessed and the love of the game? That’s how we started.”
Although current Huskies’ baseball coach Kevin Campbell didn’t know Hagins personally, he interacted with Toni Hagins when she worked at OPRF and so he realizes how important a day Saturday will be.
“Toni called me and said she wanted to do something to celebrate Andrew’s life and legacy here and came up with the idea of starting the scholarship and doing something over the years, not only benefitting the baseball program, but the community,” he said.
“When you take on a role like this, you get so connected to the current players and families and also the alumni. It’s an emotional day when we take the field, and our kids take pride, running out on the field for the Huskies and the Hagins family.”
Though Saturday will be a celebration of Hagins’ life and OPRF baseball, it won’t be an easy day for his best friends Fratto and Gil Claudio. All three shared birthdays within about a week of each other and they enjoyed celebrating together over the years.
“Every day is hard,” Claudio said. “It’s good to get with the people he impacted. You try to look at the positive side, but every day is hard.”
Added Fratto: “Every day is just a day where I live in disbelief that he’s not here anymore. Not having him here is something you just can’t put into words. It’s a very emotional day.”
As an OPRF senior, Hagins batted a blistering .465 with 13 doubles, five home runs and 40 RBI. He was named the West Suburban Conference Silver Division Most Valuable Player and earned All-Area and All-State honors.
He was drafted out of high school by the then-Tampa Bay Devil Rays but elected to play at Oakton Community College instead … with his good friend Fratto.
“He told me he was going to Oakton, and we were excited about what day we were going to look for apartments,” he recalled. “We got an apartment in Wheeling, and our relationship became stronger.”
Hagins eventually went from Oakton to Western Illinois, where his power hitting only improved.
“I remember him once at Western Illinois, he hit a ball over the treetops,” his mom said, her voice trailing off. “The power that he had in softball, baseball …”
Like Fratto, Claudio saw a lot of those softball home runs, too.
“I’ve seen multiple moonshots,” he said. “Off the bat, you knew it was gone. Sometimes it was bases loaded and they walked him. They were doing that at OPRF, PONY, anywhere we traveled.”