As a former student athlete at Abington High, Tyler Perakslis once roamed the same hallways and base paths that his players do today. These days Perakslis is a student at Bridgewater State University, but he also recently became the head coach of Abington’s junior varsity baseball team, working in the same program that his dad coaches and that he and his brother played for. We thought it would be interesting to speak with Coach Perakslis and see how he feels about coming back as a coach.

Playing Abington High School Baseball

Perakslis was a starter during his first year of high school baseball, playing varsity for South Shore Vocational Technical School, but he returned to Abington for his sophomore year, playing for both the varsity and JV baseball teams. He played first base his junior and senior year after Connor Fraser ’11 graduated.

He has a favorite memory from those days. “(During my) senior year I hit a walk off single to win the game in the second round of the playoffs. The next game we played Westwood in the south quarter finals. We were down three runs in the seventh, and we came back to force extra innings. Come the ninth inning, Westwood scored five runs, but we scored six. We never gave up and I went five for five with two walks, and (I) scored four times in that game,” said Perakslis.

“Role Models”

Ever since Perakslis was able to play baseball, he was fortunate enough to have two important men in his life to look up to, his older brother Steve Perakslis, currently a pitcher for the Tennessee Smokies, the Chicago Cubs’  Double A farm team, who is four years older than Tyler, and his dad, (also Steve Perakslis) the long time coach of the Abington varsity team. As a young boy, he looked up to his brother as a role model. He would always go to his games and watch him play. And, as Tyler got old enough to play, he became good at it, so he “stuck with it.” His dad was able to help him because he was his coach for his little league, AAU baseball and high school teams too. “Not many people can say their dad was their baseball coach for basically their whole life,” said Tyler. He helped him become a good baseball player by teaching him what he knows today and this led Tyler to teach the knowledge he gained from his father to the JV baseball team he now coaches.

Adjusting to Life as a Coach

Tyler coached a town senior league team, which was more of a learning year for him. He was able to show them what they had to do to improve their game. He also helped his father out during some of AHS tournament games. Now, he strives to make the Abington junior varsity team the best they can be. There are 14 players on his roster, which makes it difficult for him. He has many talented players, but there are only nine fielding positions. He likes how they all want to play baseball and always have positive attitudes. That makes coaching a lot easier for him. “Baseball is a mental game, and you cannot play mad, especially when you’re hitting,” said Perakslis.

Tyler doesn’t like to single people out too much, but when pressed to name a few standouts, he mentioned freshmen Colby Augusta, Ricky Reissfelder and Andrew Roy as three who are playing well. “Those three gentlemen know the game of baseball and genuinely love it,” said Perakslis. And, for a Perakslis, loving the game is a very important quality to possess.