By Chris Brown / STL Baseball Today | @cbrown_STLBBT | Feb. 15, 2016, 1:30 pm CT
Gast during 2013 Spring Training. By Bryan Green / CC Image
Less than six years after he was drafted in the sixth round of the 2010 amateur draft and after just over 12 innings in the majors, left-hander John Gast has left the Cardinals and retired from professional baseball, hanging up his spikes to enter a new profession.
Last month, the 26-year-old (who turns 27 on Tuesday) quietly stepped away from the game, four months after becoming a production manager for PT’s Coffee in Topeka, Kansas, Rob Rains of STL Sports Page reports.
“I had a passion for coffee that slowly grew and grew from just drinking it and enjoying it and roasting at home,” Gast told Rains in a telephone interview. “I found out about the job on a website and applied for it and got it and started working here in September. I didn’t retire at the end of the season because I was really just keeping my options open if it turned out to be something I didn’t like.
“Things worked out really well and I am enjoying it so I took the next step.”
After being selected by the redbirds in the sixth round of the 2010 draft out of Florida State, Gast quickly advanced through the system, making 20 starts at AAA Memphis in 2012. After Jake Westbrook hit the DL in May 2013, Gast got the call to the majors, surrendering four runs to the Mets in his first big-league start while picking up the win.
As Rains writes, “It was something that happened in the fifth inning, however, which would alter Gast’s future.”
“I made a pitch and my shoulder kind of grabbed me,” Gast said. “I had a sharp pain, but I was able to get through the sixth. I worked with the training staff between starts and didn’t have any pain so I thought I was OK. I thought cool; it was scary at first but I was glad it was gone.”
After two more mediorce starts big the big-league club, Gast’s time in the majors would be over.
“I didn’t have any pain but after the game my shoulder just never really recovered,” he said. “It was obvious something was wrong in the third game.”
The left-hander had surgery on the shoulder two months later, but never returned to being the pitcher he once was.
“Physically I am healthy but I just wasn’t quite back to the same ability,” he said. “After the surgery I pitched two seasons and had moderate success I would say, but it never really came back to me. I realized I didn’t have the same velocity and command or life on my pitches. It’s time to think about Plan B when you see yourself not at the same level. It’s been in my mind for a while, what I wanted to do next.”
As Rains reports, Gast found a new passion in coffee roasting, and as for baseball, “I’m at peace with the sport,” Gast said.
Read Rains’s full story and more from Gast at STLSportsPage.com.
More from STL Baseball Today:
Yadier Molina has cast removed, optimistic about Opening Day status
