At 14 years old, most young baseball players are thinking about the beginning of high school, the next season and maybe one day getting the opportunity to play college baseball.
For Section athlete Austin Haynes, that dream has already carried him much farther than he ever expected, across the Atlantic Ocean and onto a baseball field in Italy.
This summer, the incoming Section High School freshman was selected to represent the United States as part of the Italy All-American Baseball 2026 experience, joining a group of athletes from across the country for a week of baseball, training and international competition in Milan and Padova, with a visit to Venice along the way. And, he did it as one of the youngest players there.
At only 14, Haynes was one of just two 14-year-olds among the 27 athletes on the trip, competing alongside players as old as 18 and 19.
For a kid who first picked up a baseball at about four years old in Macedonia, it was the kind of opportunity that can make a childhood dream suddenly feel a little more real.
His road to Italy actually began a year earlier.
Last summer, Haynes attended an EXACT Sports baseball showcase in Atlanta.
Athletes were selected for the showcase through coach nominations, although Haynes still does not know which coach nominated him.
From the athletes attending showcases around the country, players were evaluated and a select group was eventually invited to become part of the All-American team traveling overseas.
Then came the invitation. Italy. “We just thank the good Lord for the amazing opportunity,” his mother, Brittany Haynes said.
The official trip ran from July 20 through July 27 and included Milan, Padova and Venice.
The athletes met at John F. Kennedy International Airport before making the approximately eight-hour flight overseas.
For the Section teenager, it meant joining teammates from places such as Texas, California and New York, young men who had never played together, and in most cases, had never even met.
Within days, they would have to become a team.
The trip was about much more than sightseeing.
They were there to play baseball.
The All-American team played four games against Italian clubs in two cities and at two ballparks.
They trained at Milano Baseball 1946, a club founded in the year following World War II and the oldest baseball club in Italy.
Their first international game was played at Campo “Kennedy” in Milan.
For a 14-year-old from Jackson County, Alabama, standing on a pitcher’s mound thousands of miles from home was a long way from where baseball began.
But once the game started, a baseball field was still a baseball field.
His favorite part of the entire experience was simple.
“Just playing the games,” Haynes said.
The American team won its first game, and throughout the trip, the young Section player proved that his age did not mean he could not compete with the older athletes around him.
Out of the 27 athletes on the trip, he was among 12 who received a postgame shoutout for recording a hit of the game.
He did it twice. Both came on two-RBI singles.
Perhaps an even bigger test came on the mound.
During the trip, he found himself pitching against a 19-year-old player who had recently signed with the Toronto Blue Jays organization.
There were five years separating them.
One was barely beginning high school.
The other had already taken a major step toward professional baseball.
The Section pitcher worked the count to 1-2 before the older player eventually singled between shortstop and third base.
There was no home run.
There was no moment when the 14-year-old appeared overwhelmed by who was standing at the plate.
When asked what went through his mind when he faced older and bigger players, his answer sounded a lot like a pitcher.
“I just don’t want to give up a home run.” He didn’t.
His approach to pressure is equally uncomplicated.
If things begin moving too quickly on the mound, he steps off, slows himself down and takes a breath.
That ability to remain composed may become increasingly important if baseball continues taking him to bigger stages.
The competition in Italy gave him a glimpse of exactly how high those stages can go.
College coaches and recruiters were part of the experience, including a recruiting panel designed to teach the young athletes about the college recruiting process.
During the trip, he saw another player approached about visiting Centre College.
For someone who has not even played his freshman season of high school baseball yet, college may seem far away.
Then again, Italy probably once did, too.
His goal is to keep playing as long as baseball will let him.
“I would love to go to college and play and just see where I go,” Haynes said.
If he had to choose a favorite college program today, Alabama would be near the top of the list.
But when it comes to an opportunity to play college baseball, he isn’t limiting himself. “I’ll go anywhere,” Haynes said.
For now, there is plenty of baseball between here and there.
He has played travel ball for years and played junior varsity baseball before entering high school.
He also plays basketball, but there is little question where his primary focus lies.
Baseball, and especially pitching, is what he loves.
He throws almost every day, usually somewhere around 20 to 40 pitches depending on how his arm and body feel.
And baseball is something of a family tradition.
His great-grandfather, Harold Williams, attended Sylvania and was a pitcher whose accomplishments earned him a place in the state hall of fame.
Now, another generation is taking the mound.
His younger brother is following along, too.
Four years younger, he plays catcher and also pitches, giving the older brother something pitchers everywhere need, a catcher close to home.
The two brothers are close, although there is apparently no shortage of coaching from big brother.
“He don’t listen all the time,” Haynes joked.
Maybe that is appropriate, because coaching is something he could see himself doing someday, or perhaps broadcasting.
After his playing career ends, hopefully many years from now, he said he could imagine becoming a coach or sports announcer.
For now, though, there are still games to play.
And this summer, those games came with an experience few 14-year-olds from Jackson County will ever have.
Between games, the players traveled through northern Italy, seeing a world dramatically different from the one they left behind.
During long bus rides, he watched fields, farms and small towns pass outside the window.
There were old buildings and castles along the countryside.
“One big old castle” built into the side of the landscape particularly caught Haynes’ attention.
There was also Milan, Padova and eventually Venice, a city without cars, where boats take the place of much of the transportation familiar to Americans.
Then there were the everyday challenges of being in another country, like ordering pizza.
The language barrier occasionally meant pointing at something on a menu and hoping everyone understood.
Italy was seven hours ahead of home, which meant his mom and little brother back in Alabama sometimes found themselves awake around 2 a.m.
trying to watch games.
The weather was sunny and warm, but without the Alabama humidity he was accustomed to.
And in one of those small-world moments that can happen even thousands of miles from home, Jackson County followed him all the way to Italy.
During a practice in Milan, the players were eating lunch behind the stadium and shooting basketball.
His father was wearing a Section shirt when another young man noticed it.
“Section, I know that,” the player said. He had been an exchange student at Skyline during the previous school year and had played baseball there.
Now, halfway around the world, a Section player and a former Skyline player had found each other on a baseball field in Italy.
The trip eventually moved from Milan to Padova, where the Americans played at Stadio Baseball Padova.
The team played four games in all, finishing 2-1-1.
Then came another memorable plate appearance.
When one player stepped into the batter’s box, the opposing team brought in a pitcher who appeared considerably older and much bigger.
“He looked like he was 30,” Haynes joked.
Haynes walked. No strikeout.
Later in the trip, the group returned to the same Padova ballpark to watch an Italian league game.
Some of the players the Americans had competed against were also playing at the senior league level.
It gave the young Americans a chance to sit in the stands and watch baseball on the same field where, only days earlier, they had been the ones competing.
There were souvenirs, of course, including a jersey and a Milan hat.
But what Haynes brought home from Italy could never fit inside a suitcase.
He had gone overseas at 14 and competed with athletes several years older.
He had stood on a mound in another country.
He had gotten hits, driven in runs and faced players whose baseball careers were already moving toward the next level.
He had experienced college recruiting discussions before his first day as a high school freshman.
Haynes also had learned that the game he has loved since he was four years old stretches far beyond Section, Jackson County, Alabama or even the United States.
Then came the journey home.
Getting back to Alabama may have been almost as memorable as getting to Italy.
The group departed Italy on Monday, July 27.
Haynes and his father, Dustin, landed in New York, turned off airplane mode and discovered their connecting flight had been canceled.
There were no more flights to Atlanta that night.
They found a hotel and, hungry after the long trip, walked to a nearby McDonald’s.
The next attempt at getting home wasn’t much better.
They traveled approximately an hour and a half to Newark, New Jersey, and tried again.
A flight was pushed later and later before finally being canceled around midnight.
More flights were canceled as storms disrupted travel.
Eventually, father and son made their way to Philadelphia, where they were able to book another flight to Atlanta.
By the time it was over, what should have been the final leg of the trip had turned into roughly 48 hours of airports, hotels, delays, cancellations and rerouting.
Three airports later, they finally made it back, arriving home around midnight Wednesday.
And there wasn’t much time to recover as school was waiting.
After a summer that included pitching in Italy, seeing Venice, facing players five years older, traveling across Europe and spending two days trying to get home, the incoming freshman was about to return to something much more familiar:
Section High School. That may be the most remarkable part of the story. Haynes is still only 14 years old.
There are high school seasons he hasn’t played yet.
There are pitches he hasn’t thrown, teams he hasn’t made, colleges he hasn’t visited and opportunities he doesn’t even know are coming.
There is no way to know today where baseball will ultimately take him, but he already knows it can take him farther than he ever imagined.
From a four-year-old learning the game at Macedonia to a 14-year-old standing on a pitcher’s mound in Italy, baseball has already carried him across an ocean, and if the summer of 2026 was any indication, his journey may just be getting started.
As the official trip guide told the young athletes before they ever took the field in Italy, “The baseball is why you came.”
For one young player from Section, Alabama, baseball was indeed the reason he went, but the memories, friendships, confidence and realization that he belonged on the field with players years older than him may be what he carries home long after the final out.
And someday, if his dream of playing college baseball becomes a reality, people may look back at the summer he was 14, before the offers, before graduation, before anyone knew exactly how far he could go, and remember that he had already taken his game halfway around the world.
By Heather Dohring
