Lest anyone think Marty Mush can’t actually play baseball.
He often says he “hits in different ways” and that rang true literally and figuratively this week.
We still have trouble just calling him Mush and not his real name, Matt Cahill, the Sachem alum and former student-athlete who has been a rising star in the Barstool Sports universe since early 2019. You can catch him talking sports betting and using his persona to generate a growing cult following.
Cahill signed a professional baseball contract with the New Jersey Jackals of the Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball, better known as the Can-Am League. He signed the contract in July after an open tryout.
“The open tryout went way better than I thought,” he said in an interview with the Jackals.
We’re still confident his greatest baseball feat will be helping Sachem win the 2011 Suffolk County Class A championship, but he saw some highlights during his college days at Mount Saint Mary College too.
As a junior he was named Mt. Saint Mary Athlete of the Week after going 2-for-3, scoring twice, hitting a first-inning double and recording one stolen base.
He made his debut in late August and managed to get one at-bat before the game was rained out in the second inning. He struck out, but did manage to foul tip one pitch that came in at 96 mph. He also played left field.
Cahill is not the first Sachem alum to play in the Can-Am League. Billy Alvino, who made it as far as Double A in the Tigers’ organization, played three seasons split between Newark and Rockland.
He’s a far cry from the likes of Neal Heaton, Sachem’s most legendary baseball player, or Carl Yastrzemski, Long Island and Suffolk County’s grandest player, but Mush finds himself in the ether of baseball lore somehow anyway.
Stay tuned for updates when Cahill gets some more games and swings under his belt.
“I gotta get at least a double next time,” he said. “Steal third. Steal home.”
The Mush hits in different ways.