Mahmut Binark comes from Izmir, a busy city in Turkey that’s home to a wide collection of colleges and universities, a passion for international football, a heritage that spans back to the Ottomans, and a waterfront community that is to die for. He’s hoping that one day it’s also known as the hometown of a prominent member of the BBA.
This is because Binark found baseball early in life, and has been in love with it ever since.
“I love the strategy of it,” he said in a brief interview earlier today. “It’s probably the hardest game to play, too. The edge between skilled and not skilled is like a razor, you know. It demands such precision.”
Of course, growing up in a country where baseball is not the dominant sport poses some not-insignificant challenges. He had few baseball fields to haunt. Almost no proper training facilities. And no people--competitive or not—to play against. Nevertheless, Mahmut’s dedication was always intense. “I built my own pitching mound, and had the traditional strike zone painted on the wall behind the plate. I did a lot of imagining the batters up there, swinging or not. I won a lot of Montys there in my backyard.”
Being self-taught on that makeshift mound, by the time Binark arrived as a school kid, he made the team and was good enough to capture the imaginations of local scouts.
This is when the whispers began. The idea that perhaps Binark’s dreams weren’t so far-fangled. His coach, an ex-pat from America with a little experience in international baseball, fanned the flames, talking the kid up to all his contacts. Eventually, some started to pay attention, and with that attention came expectation. At 6'2" his physical presence on the mound was undeniable, and as he matured the kid was mowing down kids his age without much effort.
"To be fair to the other kids, it wasn't easy," Mahmut remembered. "But my coach believed in me when no one else did. every time I pitched, I felt closer to my goal."
He was 17 when he signed a deal with the Seattle Storm.
The world was his oyster.
“That was a great day,” he said. “I remember it like it was yesterday. I gave my dad half the bonus, and his eyes got big as teacups. I think he understood the passion then.”
However, his journey to the majors was anything but smooth. Despite obvious talent, Mahmut struggled.
Hard.
He struggled in the team’s international complex, but pushed by the team’s buzz machine, he struggled when the team promoted him a few years later anyway.
And Ogden. He struggled there in Odgen, Utah -- which is a place about as far and different from Izmir, Turkey as one can figure.
Homesickness was a major problem. The fastball straightened out, and the curveball lost its wrinkle. He threw in relief his first year of rookie ball, and started in his second season. Neither were particularly eye-popping when it came to results, but--again fueled by prior expectation over numbers--he skipped from R-ball straight up the A-ball in a new environment—Lake City, Florida, where he crumbled further, posting a 7-15 record to go with a 5.75 ERA.
Still, the scouts drooled over potential. The change-up, they said. The beautiful change-up that comes in two flavors. When it comes in, Mahmut Binark is going to be a special kind of special.
“It's a hard thing to deal with people telling you how good you are after you've gotten your ass handed to you,” he said of the time. “I thought I was done, but the team promoted me again. Which was probably a bad thing, but I just didn’t know. Everything was very confusing.”
A Glimmer of Hope – Maybe
Here’s the thing. After all this reading.
Mahmut Binark would probably still not be in the big leagues if it weren’t for the time clock that comes as part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. He’s getting along in the years to be considered a prospect, and his numbers have been all over the board. But the potentials are still there. To put it bluntly, despite those numbers, the Bikini Krill (which is what the Seattle Storm became) did not want to lose him. And, yet, it’s also clear they don’t know how to use him. That change-up, that beautiful change-up, has still not come fully into either flavor. The stuff hasn’t seemed to translate fully on the journey between the warmup bullpen and the actual mound.
But there’s been there enough the people can still get a gleam of that potential.
His ERA on this, his rookie year is 4.92. It's been created in a role that seems to change daily--which he admits is hard. He’s had lumps, as, happened toward the end of July when Loserville bludgeoned him for 6 runs in less than two innings. But his last two starts have resulted in only three runs in eleven innings, and the seven relief appearances between those starts have seen him give only five earned runs in seventeen innings.
The game, it seems, might be coming to him.
And, despite all the setbacks, Mahmut Binark’s resilience has been shining through.
His story is far from over. At 26 years old, he still stands on the precipice of either fulfilling his immense potential or becoming another tale of a guy who didn’t quite capture the lighting in the bottle. But he’s here. In a big-league uniform. A long way from Izmir. And he’s still dropping his dad a few dollars here and a few dollars there.
“I’m not going to give up,” Binark said. “That’s the lesson I’ve taken from this, and it’s the thing I want my future kids to learn from me. Every game is a lesson and every lesson is an opportunity to learn who you are. I adapt, and I come back stronger. I'm not done yet, you know? The journey is long, but I know where I'm headed. The best is yet to come."