Considering his success for the past three-plus seasons with the Schaumburg Boomers, it’s hard to believe that once upon a time, Kyle Fitzgerald hated baseball.
Really. It’s true for the Brookfield native who still lives locally.
“The reason why I got into (baseball), I started practicing by myself; my dad and my brother left me out of it,” he said with a chuckle. “We got a pitchback and I got into it that way. It was a chip-on-the-shoulder-type start. My mom coached me and I played travel ball at 10 years old.”
Since then, he’s come a long way. The Landmark player of the year as a senior in 2017, the Riverside-Brookfield High School graduate went on to play two years at Northwest Florida State College, before moving on to St. Louis University, finishing with a degree in economics in 2022.
After a hitch locally with the Lombard Orioles that summer, he realized he was at a baseball crossroads.
“I wanted to play professionally,” he said. “Once that summer cycle ended, I didn’t know what I was training for.”
But things changed the following February, when he attended a Frontier League tryout – the Boomers’ league, an independent professional circuit and an official partner of Major League Baseball.
There were 1,500 players at the tryout in St. Louis, and it was, baseball-wise, an intense experience. For a $150 entry fee, the first day you had eight swings of the bat and eight throws. The next day there were games, where he got about six at bats.
That’s a lot of work just to get the opportunity to play some more of the game he once hated.
Luck was with him. He passed the tryout and got selected by the Boomers.
Four years later, he’s their starting first baseman and as of Friday, was batting .299 with 20 hits, two home runs and 18 runs batted in. His team was leading the Midwest West Division with a 12-7 record.
That is a nice carryover from the 2025 campaign, where he had 93 hits, 61 RBIs and 12 stolen bases, helping the Boomers reach the championship finals before falling to the Quebec Capitales.
There’s a lot more to Boomers baseball than stats and success, Fitzgerald is quick to point out.
“I can’t describe the camaraderie I have,” he said. “A lot of us are here four years later. The team and the core guys that are here have been special. It makes being at the field 12 hours a day easy and fun to look forward to.”
Ask Fitzgerald if he feels like he’s playing the best ball of his life, and he’ll tell you no. But there’s a good reason.
“I’m playing a different kind of game,” he said. “I’m playing the game and having fun. In college, it’s all next step, next step. I’ve had better years performance-wise, but I didn’t enjoy them.”
Thus, the next step can be overrated. The team Fitzgerald is on now is a power-packed bunch, with about 150 RBIs and 50 homers on the bench alone, he estimated.
Now that he’s a veteran, there is the expectation of leadership, and he’s got a refreshing philosophy in that area.
“I always try to lead by example, and if there is an issue, confront it,” he said. “I was a young guy before. I want to give them tough love, but I want them to know I’m always in their corner.”
That said, there are a lot of high school players at his high school alma mater and other area schools that want to be him someday – a major contributor to a good team.
His advice?
Be ready, because you never know when your opportunity will arise.
“It took me in the weight room and the cage every day since I was a sophomore in high school,” he said. “Trusting the process is a cliché, but it is a process. Get your body as physically fit and when it’s time for you to perform, you keep performing on the field, you keep moving up.”