Jabari Henry was like every son who watched their father excel at sport in that he wanted to be just like his dad. In his case, his father played pro basketball, so Jabari wanted to do the same.
While he played basketball in high school, he also played baseball, and the end of the former overlapped with the start of the latter, so he always had continuity between the two.
But in his sophomore year, a new coach arrived, and that was a signal for the young athlete.
“Maybe I need to stick with baseball,” he told me in our interview.
That was a great decision because baseball is something he’s still doing and doing well as a member of the Sioux Falls Canaries of the American Association.
Most have never heard of Jabari Henry, the American Association or the Sioux Falls Canaries for that matter, but all three are baseball entities that you should know.
The American Association was first formed in 1902 and has had many iterations over the next century until settling in to its current form in 2005, the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball Leagues.
The Sioux Falls Canaries is one of the 12 teams in the league.
And Jabari is one of the league’s biggest stars and like Barry Bonds, his favorite player, its home run king.
On May 29th, Jabari, now in his ninth season in the Association, broke the Association’s home run record with his 147th blast in the third inning. He would also go on to hit his 148th that night as well.
While his power makes him a crowd favorite, it’s who he is that truly endears him to fans across the league.
He carries a big smile to complement the power he unleashes at the plate, something that he’s done almost every season.
“Jabari Henry is a fan favorite all over the American Association, and we couldn’t be more excited that he now has the home run record,” said Joshua Schaub, American Association commissioner. “He is such a tremendous representative of the league and how our players really connect with their communities.”
Growing up in Florida, Jabari came from an athletic family as his entire family played sports.
But after making the decision to focus on baseball, he began the arduous task of committing all of his time and energy to the sport.
“It was non-stop baseball,” he said. “It was travel ball, high school ball, pre-season games, whatever it was, I had to do it.”
As time went on, he began to attract attention and that led to the stressful recruiting period all great athletes face.
“It was Florida State, LSU, all the Florida schools. It came down to FSU, FIU and I was talking a little bit to Samford and Alabama. I was going to go to Florida State, but with the scholarship, I was better off at FIU.”
He obviously made the right choice. Not just because he’s still playing pro ball, but also because he played for coach Turtle Thomas, who he called “one of the best coaches ever.”
Jabari had a great freshman year, and ended up playing in the Cape Cod league, which is known as one of the best collegiate summer baseball leagues in the country.
So if you were elite, like Todd Helton, Aaron Judge, Pete Alonzo, or Paul Skenes, you were at Cape Cod, and that’s just where Jabari was after his first year in college.
But his success also ended up hurting him as his ego overtook his ability.
“My head got a little big, and I thought I was going to get drafted high, but I struggled a little bit,” he said. “That was the first time I ever struggled and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”
That moment is one all great athletes face. It’s a pain that tests your resolve, attitude and faith. But for those who find ways to deal with it and overcome, the path to success is usually rediscovered.
Fortunately, he eventually figured it out, made it through that dark period and began to play at the level he was accustomed to minus the big head.
And he did it simply by having fun playing the game he loved.
After navigating that challenging road, and with his play vastly improving, he was drafted by the Seattle Mariners.
So after his junior year, he had a decision to make- return for his senior season or play pro ball.
After speaking with his family, he decided to turn pro, which presented him with his next challenge. Understanding the game within the game of baseball.
“I didn’t know anything about minor league ball,” he said. “I was out there having fun until I started hitting home runs. Then I started having meetings with people I had never met before.
“And that’s when it became real to me like, ‘Oh. This is a job.'”
That’s what power hitting can do for a player.
The next season in spring training he hit a home run off of a pro reliever, and teams paid even more attention.
But that attention also meant more pressure, and once again the struggle returned.
As a young player that everyone watched for homeruns, he became focused on hitting home runs. That didn’t pan out, so he faced another challenging moment in his young pro career.
“I was young and I didn’t know a lot about baseball, the knowledge of it. I was trying to do too much and put too much pressure on myself. A lot of people don’t know about the struggles of prospects….and a lot of people don’t know how to get out of it.”
But he did know, and the answer was, again, to just smile and have fun.
And once again, it all clicked and the success returned.
Fast forward a few years and Jabari ends up in Sioux Falls, a city that’s a far cry from places like Orlando and Miami in almost every way.
Yet while it may look different, the game is basically the same, and he’s enjoying the game, the team, the city and the fans.
“I’m just playing ball and having the most fun I can for as long as I can,” he said.
Jabari has been playing pro ball for over a decade now and he knows the next step is coming. While he doesn’t know exactly what he wants to do, he knows he wants to remain involved in sports either in coaching or by opening a training facility for football and baseball athletes.
While he’s trying to figure that out, Jabari Henry is still playing ball, still hitting home runs and still doing it all with a smile.
