Ex-Air Force Cadet, Budding MLB Ace Paul Skenes Should've Been Born On The Fourth Of July
Paul Skenes should have been born on the Fourth of July. It's that simple.
But Craig and Karen Skenes are happy with what happened on May 29, 2002, in Fullerton, California. Their son has blossomed into a 6-foot-6, 240-pound, towering inferno of a baseball pitcher, who is tearing up Major League Baseball as a rookie with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Skenes is 4-0 with a 2.06 earned run average and 70 strikeouts through nine starts. With a better bullpen, he could be 8-0. In his last two starts, Skenes allowed a home run to the lead-off batter, then allowed no more runs with 17 strikeouts through the next six and seven innings, respectively, before being taken out.
And he does it all with gas. He will soon have thrown 100 pitches on the season at 100 mph or higher, with no one else close.
Pittsburgh Pirates' rookie pitcher Paul Skenes with girlfriend, former LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne, after his Major League Baseball debut on May 11 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. (Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)
The Pirates signed Skenes as the first pick of the 2023 MLB Draft for a record $9.2 million signing bonus after he helped LSU win the national championship earlier that summer. He also happens to be dating an All-American blonde - former LSU gymnast and social media jet setter Olivia Dunne, who was an All-American with the Tigers. That LSU team also won the national championship last spring.
But Skenes' heart is still with the Air Force Academy. There he was both a dominant pitcher and hitter for the Falcons from 2021-22 while dreaming of flying F-16s before heading to LSU, where he enjoyed the flyover below before a game.
Skenes' uncles Mike and Pete each served in the Navy and his uncle Dan served in the Coast Guard. He has a cousin who is a glider instructor at the Air Force Academy. The Wild Blue Yonder is literally in his blood.
Double Life: Paul Skenes Really Wants To Fly F-16s
Skenes also lost a friend who died on duty for the Air Force. When Skenes was at El Toro High in Lake Forest, California, he met Travis Wilkie, the starting catcher on the Air Force team in 2015-16 and '18, while on a visit to the campus. Second lieutenant Wilkie died in 2019 trying to land a T-38 training jet at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma. Wilkie wore No. 20. Skenes wore No. 20 last season at LSU.
"He was a lively dude," Skenes told the Baton Rouge Advocate in 2023. "You could tell he loved life, loved the military. But that's why I wear No. 20."
Skenes loves the military. He got emotional discussing his two years at Air Force on June 14 with several reporters before a Friday night game at Colorado. Early that morning, Skenes and some of his Pirates teammates had driven an hour south from Denver to the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs and returned for the game.
Paul Skenes Returns To The Air Force Academy
"Definitely, as soon as you drive down there, there were some memories that popped up," Skenes said. "Anything that I can do or any of us can do to bring eyes to the Air Force Academy is good. Especially with how much it affected me. I owe them that much. I want to keep that going as long as I can. I think how quickly everything has happened is the thing that has surprised me the most. Really, the thing that's helped me the most is having this background and this base."
Pittsburgh pitcher Paul Skenes is 4-0 this season with a 2.06 ERA and 70 strikeouts in 52 and a third innings with 10 walks in nine starts. (Getty Images)
Skenes became a better and faster pitcher at LSU, where he went 13-2 with a 1.69 ERA and led the nation and broke an SEC record with 209 strikeouts. But even with his success at LSU, he's still all about the armed forces and the men and women who serve.
For every one of his strikeouts this season, he is giving $100 to the Gary Sinise Foundation for military veterans and first responders.
"The kid's an American patriot," Ryan Rutter, Skenes' commanding officer when he was at the Air Force, told The Denver Post's Sean Keeler last month. "I don't know any other way to say it. At a young age, he showed his colors to be red, white and blue."
And yours better be, too, if he's around you and the situation demands it. Like during the national anthem.
While at Air Force, Skenes once attended a women's soccer match and noticed a player from the other team kneeling in protest during the anthem. He promptly ran over to the baseball locker room, grabbed Old Glory, ran back to the soccer field and waved it around proudly for everyone to see.
Paul Skenes: Stand At Attention For Anthem Or Else
The day after 13 U.S. soldiers died from a suicide bombing at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August of 2021, Skenes and his fellow Air Force cadets and teammates were at attention for the national anthem at the usual 16:45 military time (4:45 p.m., which ends duty each day). Skenes noticed on a nearby hill that two football managers in a video booth were not standing straight and not looking at the flag.
After the anthem, Skenes went right up to the managers to remind them that "we just lost 13 Americans in Afghanistan" and to please stand at attention.
"He's an old soul," Air Force coach Mike Kazlausky told the Post. "He's been put on God's green earth to make a difference. And I'm not just talking about baseball."
Skenes didn't just go back to the Air Force Academy last month to talk baseball.
"Colorado is unlike anywhere else that I've ever been for a number of reasons," Skenes said to the swarm of reporters. "The nostalgia and the memories it brings back and the relationships it brings up for me and the lessons that I've learned here - it gets me emotional. This has been an awesome, huge part of my life. I get labeled as the LSU guy, because obviously I got drafted out of there. But I'm just as much an Air Force guy as I am an LSU guy. I'm very fond of my time at LSU, but I definitely want people to know how fond I am of my time at Air Force. It's the greatest school on earth."
The Air Force will fly with Skenes for the rest of his MLB career until a possible return to base.
"There is still a big service piece that he wants to provide," Kazlausky said. "Because he knows everything he has is because of those who wear our nation's uniform."
He'll be wearing the Pirates uniform for now, and with his Nolan Ryan-like regimen between starts, he could pitch into his 40s as well.
"I think people understand his background and what he's done," Kazlausky said. "People really want to buy into that piece - that a real American gets it."