California kid Raider Tello has adjusted fine to cold-weather baseball at Iowa

CEDAR RAPIDS — A lot of kids from the Midwest who are serious about playing baseball would never think about going to a school in this part of the country.

They want to go south or out west, someplace where they can play their favorite game outside all year long. Obviously you can’t do that in Iowa.

But this particular kid didn’t care about that stuff. Raider Tello decided to come to the Midwest, to Iowa to play college baseball.

And he’s from California.

“I know there’s a difference between playing outside and playing inside,” he said. “But as long as you are putting in the work, eventually when it gets to some point in the season, it’s all going to flatten out and even out. So now that we’re approaching these spring months, everyone is outside, everyone is playing.“

Tello is from Almonte, Calif., about a half-hour north of San Francisco. He began his career at the University of Portland and red-shirted as a freshman.

He then transferred to Pasadena City College, where he set school records for hits and RBIs in a season. Recruiting went pretty well, and he was down to Iowa and California-Santa Barbara.

The Hawkeyes won out, perhaps somewhat surprisingly.

“After hearing the University of Iowa was on board, you know, it was the University of Iowa,” Tello said. “It’s a big school, there are a lot of people, and the thing was that I kind of wanted a second chance of maybe seeing what I could do outside the state of California.

“I also was infatuated by the way the coaches presented themselves, how they went about their business. They were all business, but they also weren’t afraid of being coaches who would be there for you as a player and a person. So I thought it was a great fit for me.”

Tello is a sophomore who has been Iowa’s primary third baseman this season. He played shortstop at Pasadena.

He’s hitting .304 in 42 games with three home runs and 37 RBIs and controls the strike zone well, as evidenced by his walk-strikeout ratio of 25-26. Hitting in cold weather hasn’t been an issue.

“For myself, I think it’s gone pretty well,” Tello said. “It’s definitely tough to go from junior college, where every now and then you run into a guy who’s throwing 92, 95, to D-I, where it feels like everyone is throwing that hard. It gets to the point where everyone is throwing that hard, or it feels like everyone’s pitches move, like, three feet.

“So it’s a little tough when you first try and make the adjustment. But I feel like as long as you keep your nose to the grindstone and keep doing what you need to do, you can make that adjustment sooner rather than later and pick yourself up. The most important thing to me is doing what I can to make sure I’m helping the team to the best of my ability.”

Iowa takes a 32-11 overall record into a three-game weekend home series against Ohio State. Games are Friday night and Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

The Hawkeyes are sixth in the Big Ten Conference with an 8-6 league record, a half-game behind third-place Nebraska, Indiana and Michigan. Iowa has one fewer game than those three teams because it had a game last weekend at Penn State canceled by rain.

Maryland leads the league with an 11-4 record. Iowa’s RPI was 37 through Wednesday.

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