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Playing on the Fourth of July special for Sam Kulasingam
Air Force Academy grad goes 2-for-4 Sunday as Quad Cities beats the Cedar Rapids Kernels, 5-3
Jul. 6, 2025 9:04 pm
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CEDAR RAPIDS - It would have been an awesome story. One of the best.
Instead it turned into “just” a really good story.
Sam Kulasingam played second base for the Quad Cities River Bandits this past week in a Midwest League series against the Cedar Rapids Kernels. He is having a good first full professional season in the Kansas City Royals organization.
The 24-year-old from North Carolina resident is an Air Force Academy graduate. That he got to play ball on the Fourth of July in a ballpark called Veterans Memorial Stadium was not lost on him.
“It’s cool, it’s special,” said Kulasingam, whose team beat Cedar Rapids, 5-3, Sunday afternoon. “There are a few days throughout the year where all Americans just kind of come together. You can just kind of feel the buzz throughout the country, wherever you are. Whether I was back home in North Carolina, where I was at school in Colorado, whether I’m here in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, you just kind of feel the buzz and patriotism, and it’s special.”
Kulasingam, 24, played baseball at the academy with Jay Thomason, an infielder for the Kernels. But Thomason is on the injured list with turf toe and back at the parent Minnesota Twins complex in Florida rehabbing.
It would have been the ultimate for two guys from Air Force to play each other on the Fourth of July. Still, this was, as Kulasingam said, cool.
He was a 13th-round draft pick of the Royals last July. A two-time Mountain West Conference player of the year, he was drafted after his junior season in 2023 by the Blue Jays but decided not to sign.
Kulasingam went 2-for-4 Sunday to boost his batting average to a solid .288 in 73 games this season. He does offseason PR stuff for the academy, which does not count toward a four-year military commitment he has after his baseball career ends.
Even if he ends up playing in the major leagues for 10 years, he’ll serve in some capacity.
“It’s the opportunities it provides, while you are at school and after you graduate,” Kulasingam said when asked why he went to Air Force. “While you are there, you can do all sorts of things you can’t do anywhere else, besides maybe the Army and the Navy. They are strapping you into fighter jets, they are throwing you into gliders, you are jumping out of planes. You are taking water-survival classes, you are taking boxing, you are taking wrestling classes, all of that stuff, on top of the normal academic workload.
“You are getting a degree, and that degree holds a lot of weight ... (An employer) kind of knows your background. That you are going to be disciplined, they know you are going to show up on time, do the right thing. After you graduate, the opportunities, they just continue ... They set you up for life.”
Quad Cities won three of the five games played in this series between the teams with the best overall records in the Western Division. Saturday night’s game was rained out.
The Kernels (45-35 overall, 5-9 second half) didn’t do much offensively until the ninth inning when they scored twice and brought the tying run to the plate. They have a six-game series at Peoria scheduled this week, beginning Tuesday night.
Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com
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