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'Family' brings former MLB pitcher back to Southeast Missouri
The desire to return home is strong.
Matt Palmer wasn’t just a baseball coach in Arizona but also a business owner, working in construction.
When Cape Central turned to the Caruthersville native to run the baseball program, Palmer was ready to close that chapter of his life and return to his roots.
“The biggest thing is trying to get back to family,” Palmer said. “We liked the area. We’ve been in Arizona for 20-plus years and it’s just time for a change.”
Palmer played high school baseball at Caruthersville and has faced off against the Tigers in the past. Cape Girardeau represented the central point where he could be close to family and his wife wouldn’t be too far away from her Alabama roots.
While moving construction businesses from state to state is an arduous journey that requires a lot of regulatory obstacles, Palmer sees his return to Missouri as an opportunity to embark on an occupation close to his heart.
“I love plants and entomology,” said Palmer, who studied agriculture and horticulture in college.
Palmer previously served as the head coach of the American Leadership Academy in Gilbert, Arizona. Under his leadership, ALA went from an eight-win team prior to his hiring to 12-7 his first season and 14-5 the next year, which ended with a trip to the state quarterfinals in Class 4.
Palmer said he only got into coaching because he wanted his son to have the best guidance on the diamond as possible.
“I didn’t like some of the coaching that was going on so I decided to get back into it,” Palmer said. “I didn’t really pursue it. Then as my son started getting older and more involved in it as well, too, and just seeing what was going on in the coaching world and just a lot of people that didn’t know what they were doing. So I just said, ‘OK, I’ll go venture out and get into the coaching world.’”
Palmer was selected by the San Francisco Giants in the 31st round of the 2002 MLB draft. He made his big league debut with the Giants in 2008. He went on to spend the next three years of his career with the Los Angeles Angels from 2009-11, and then finally with the San Diego Padres in 2012 before going back to the minor leagues to finish the rest of his 13-year professional career.
Palmer played college ball at Three Rivers College and Missouri State (then known as Southwest Missouri State).
With all that experience in the college and pro games, the high school level could be where he excels as a coach.
“I enjoy coaching kids,” Palmer said. “Kids are still willing to learn and listen and you can kind of mold them.”
The Cape Central Tigers finished 10-25 last season and have had only one winning season in the last seven years. The Tigers return all but one senior but, along with Palmer as the coach, his son, Keegan, will be a senior entering the 2024-25 school year and is expected to form a 1-2 pitching punch with junior Jathan Spain.
“I think the biggest thing is the kids have to buy into what you’re doing,” Palmer said. “You got to be hard on the kids but also love and care for them as well, too. So you have to be dedicated to what they’re doing. You got to believe in it just as much as I believe in it.”
Palmer understood that a lot of former pro athletes struggle as coaches because they can’t impart their unique ability or perspective to the average adolescent athlete.
“Every time I used to get on the field, I used to think about, why can’t they get this or why they don’t understand this because my brain is thinking 15 times faster than what theirs are,” Palmer said. “Then you have to say, ‘OK, let me dumb this down a little bit and get back on their level and teach them what they need to know instead of what I think they should know.’”