Rome Shubert and his Santa Fe Indians teammates were leading 6-0 in the 4th inning of a game against the Channelview Falcons when a coach ran onto the field and told everyone to go home, the rest of their tournament was cancelled.
Shubert, a Houston Cougars signee, describes that moment as “shocking” for a variety of reasons. No one was fully understanding what was happening all around them at the time, but the more fundamental question occurs, why not just let these kids play the final three innings before calling things off?
“We were rolling,” Shubert says with pride about his team. On a personal level, the young man who has pitching stats anyone would admire, was even beginning to heat up at the plate as his senior year was unfolding. In their last full game before the game shutdown in the 4th inning, Santa Fe had topped La Porte 9-2. In that game, Shubert was 3-for-4 at the plate with 2 RBI, only a triple shy of hitting for the cycle. On the mound he tossed 5 scoreless innings of one-hit ball, struck out four, and picked up the win to move to 3-0 on the season, while only facing one over the minimum.
As a junior in 2019, Shubert led Santa Fe deep into the state high school playoffs. He compiled an 11-1 record while recording a .86 ERA and striking out 84 batters in 73 ⅓ innings.
So, how do you improve on a season like that? Summer ball followed the high school playoffs, and when he was not playing, Rome spent time working out, eventually adding fifteen pounds of muscle to his frame. “I definitely improved with consistent velo,” says Shubert. “The velo was higher consistently for a longer period. I was still sitting in the upper 80s in the 6th inning.” He points out that at the same time in the previous season, where he might be sitting 84-85mph into the fifth and sixth innings, this season he was sitting 86-88mph into the sixth inning.
In January of his sophomore year, before the baseball season even got underway, Shubert attended a Houston Cougars baseball camp. At that camp, with coaches watching, Shubert struck out 7 of 10 batters he faced, these were kids his own age up to junior college sophomores. Houston coaches were aware of Rome from the summer before when his summer team had a private workout with the coaching staff.
Before January ended, Rome Shubert was a University of Houston commit.
Having made his decision before his actual sophomore season began, Shubert only had to focus on his own game. That season he posted a .84 ERA going 75 ⅓ innings and striking out 84 batters.
After the 2020 season was paused and before it was eventually cancelled altogether, Rome and his teammates have been staying active and in shape. At the home of a teammate who has an outdoor shop with workout equipment, they all arrange a schedule and go two at a time so there are not too many people at once, and thus violating any local rules, “at any given time there are two of us,” Shubert says. They throw, or workout, or they do both. “I’ve been doing that six days a week, every day but Sunday.”
With his official high school career behind him after the UIL ended the season just this past week, Rome Shubert leaves Santa Fe having won 26 games in four years as a varsity pitcher. His ERA is a miniscule 1.21. He struck out 208 batters in 213 ⅔ innings pitched. And of the 30 games that he started, he pitched 16 complete games, including two of his three starts in a shortened 2020 season. “Rome has started for us since his freshman year,” said Santa Fe head coach Ronnie Wulf. “I have had the pleasure of watching him grow and mature over the past four years, especially in a leadership role. He has become one of the best pitchers in the state.”
With what looked to be a great season ahead cut short significantly, Rome is now focused on his summer workout routine, which might involve summer league tournament action, but if that does not work out, then the routine will certainly involve throwing bullpens and live at-bats to friends and teammates. Coach Wulf stated, “Rome is a great kid, very competitive, and always looking for ways to be a better player and works hard to achieve his goals.”
Shubert is ready to compete, and he brings a winning attitude to the University of Houston. “An opportunity is an opportunity,” he says. “Whatever opportunity I’m given, I’m definitely going to take and run with it.”
When he was five, his parents put him in t-ball. When he was seven, he made the all-star team in his little league. Seven-year-old Rome Shubert had no idea what an all-star team was, his parents had to try to explain it. So he showed up to the first practice and all his friends were there. And he made even more friends during that time with the all-star team. Their team played a while together and they kept winning, eventually finishing as runner-up in their area. Shubert says, “that all-star experience when I was seven years old, was the moment when I thought, “ok, I think I’m going to do this for a long time”.”
That seven-year-old is about to step onto a university campus in a few months with a spot on the team roster firmly within reach, and the ability before long to legitimately compete for the Friday spot in the rotation. –
Houston Cougars Baseball Beat 