Billy Fleming Right At Home With The Thunder

HEADLINE: Billy Fleming Right At Home With The Thunder

If you are a minor league baseball player, the road to the big leagues can take you just about anywhere in the country. You could end up hundreds, if not thousands of miles from home.

That's what makes Billy Fleming's current situation very cool.

A Churchville, Bucks County native and Council Rock South High School product, Fleming is playing these days in Trenton, just about twenty miles from where he grew up, for the New York Yankees Double-A affiliate, the Thunder.

"I'm having a blast," Fleming tells KYW Newsradio. "Just trying to work your way up through the system and just playing so close to home here is pretty awesome, to have the Double-A affiliate in Trenton, so it's been awesome so far. I'm having a lot of fun."

Listen to the entire interview with Trenton's Billy Fleming:

A 23-year-old infielder, Fleming had an outstanding career at West Virginia University, but he was not drafted. He did sign with the Yankees as a free agent in July of 2014 and he has rapidly climbed the organizational ladder, thanks in large part to a .319 career minor-league average. He got a taste of Double-A last year and after hitting .329 this season for High-A Tampa in the Florida State League, he was promoted to the Thunder again in late May. He talks about what has allowed him to have this kind of success.

"I think just believing in myself," Fleming says. "I felt like I should've been drafted after my junior year, which kind of played into my decision to sign out of the Cape Cod League. I just believed in my ability and I knew that I was just as good as these guys that were playing and I figured I had a good shot at it. So once I got offered from the Yankees, I just wanted to take that opportunity and run with it."

That he has. On Sunday, Fleming hit his first Double-A home run, a towering shot to left in the first inning, it proved to be the only run in a 1-0 Trenton win over Erie.

Fleming talks about the biggest challenges of adjusting to pro baseball.

"I think the amount of games," Fleming says. "In college you play about sixty-something and then you go to summer ball and you probably play about forty. I would say that's probably the biggest adjustment and just getting into a routine every single day. It's nice because you don't have to worry about school or anything like that, you kind of just focus on baseball every single day. So once you find that routine, you can get into a pretty good groove."

Fleming has certainly turned heads so far as a pro and his future in baseball would appear bright. However it turns out, you can be sure that his time in Trenton will always be pretty special to him.

"You get to see your family, your friends, grandparents," Fleming says. "It's a pretty awesome experience to have your grandparents and parents be able to come to the games. Because they usually have to take a flight out or stay for a couple games, but they get to see every game that were home. So it's a blast. Looking up at them in the stands is pretty cool."

Trenton opens a series in Binghamton on Tuesday.