the lineup card: vol 3
This past August, RJ Cromartie was playing mini-golf with two friends when he paused to call Notre Dame assistant baseball coach Logan Robbins. Cromartie sought to verify that Robbins had received the financial aid forms requested by one of his travel coaches. However, when Robbins answered the call, his tone was more enthusiastic than Cromartie expected.
“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you the last two weeks,” Robbins emphatically told Cromartie. He continued to explain how Notre Dame was extremely high on him after watching him play at a recent tournament. “If you want to be here, you’re here.”
Cromartie was stunned. The switch-hitting third baseman from Penn High School had dreamed of playing for the hometown Irish since he was 12 years old. He went home, gathered his family in their living room and called back. During their 30-minute conversation, Robbins discussed all the reasons to choose their program and even mentioned that he noticed Cromartie’s father, Richard, wears Notre Dame shirts everywhere he goes.
“They’re super observant,” Cromartie said. “They really cared about me as a player. Not only me but my family as well. From that initial phone call, it just felt like I was in great hands.”
Not long before their conversation, the Irish secured a commitment from another rising star from South Bend – Jayce Lee, an outfielder from St. Joseph High School. Lee skyrocketed up the 2024 rankings after transforming from a 5-foot-9 freshman into a 6-foot-3 sophomore the previous spring. He finished the 2022 high school season with a .433 batting average, four home runs, 27 RBI and 13 stolen bases in 22 games. The most memorable moment occurred in the section playoffs when Lee belted a no-doubt walk-off home run to send his team to the championship game. PBR Indiana posted the video on social media, which went viral. He received a call from an interested school as early as that night. Ultimately, Notre Dame offered what he was looking for.
“The hitting philosophy they preach really drew me in,” Lee said. Another key deciding factor was the opportunity to stay home and compete as a freshman. “They were big on, ‘the best players play’ and that motivated me to come in.”
Lee and Cromartie committed to Notre Dame a day apart from each other, but their connection goes way beyond that.
“We honestly hated each other”
Cromartie and Lee’s older brothers, Brendan and Jalen, grew up playing Pop Warner football and AAU basketball together. Their families quickly became very close and wherever they were, RJ and Jayce came along with them. At every practice or game, the two boys would play together on the sidelines, which almost always resulted in an argument.
“They were just two little competitive kids running around trying to be the best,” Richard Cromartie Sr. explained. He and Jayce’s father, Wesley, still laugh about their fights, including one instance where Jayce bit RJ’s arm while wrestling on the ground. “As they got older and started playing together, then that competitive energy became for each other.”
Eventually, the two boys would join forces in travel baseball. Cromartie Sr. remembered watching his older son lose badly to the Indiana Bulls, a prestigious travel program that has produced over 170 MLB draft picks. He promised RJ that he would try out for them one day, and by age 9, he made the team. After another spot suddenly opened, Coach Rick Stiner emailed the parents asking if they knew anyone that could play on their team. Right away, Cromartie Sr. responded with the first name that came to mind – Jayce Lee.
“This kid is phenomenal,” Cromartie Sr. told Stiner. He believed that Lee should have tried out from the beginning, but at the time, he was committed to their local team. Coach Stiner gave him a tryout, and within minutes, Lee impressed him enough to make the roster.
From 9U on, the two families arranged an alternating schedule for carpooling to games and practices together. They would get out of school around 3 p.m., pack all of their stuff into the car, and make the two-hour drive to Indianapolis for practice three times a week. Whether they traveled in the Cromarties’ sedan or the Lees’ SUV, the two boys were forced to spend countless hours doing their homework together in the backseat.
“We literally had to be with each other 24/7,” Lee said. Most times, these 9-year-old kids did not get home from baseball until after midnight. “I feel that made us inherently closer. I don’t know where you can get a bond like that.”
Their families are so intertwined from spending time together that each player now claims the other’s parents and siblings as their own. During these lengthy car rides, the parents took advantage of the opportunity to deliver life lessons. Wesley Lee described these family times as “invaluable” for him as a parent. He was able to connect with the kids, inquire about their day, and discover what they learned in school.
Cromartie Sr. would use some of that time to inspire the boys, preaching that one day, they would go to Notre Dame together. He himself had grown up so close to Notre Dame’s campus that he could listen to the marching band practice their “Victory March” song and hear the roar of the Irish faithful on game days. Being nearby a prestigious university, it made it that much easier for both sets of parents to push their kids to academic excellence.
Star students
Both Cromartie and Lee are just as passionate about succeeding in the classroom as they are on the field. When discussing the reasons to choose Notre Dame, each of them described how far their degree can take them once their playing days are over.
“I don’t just want to be known as ‘the boy who plays baseball,'” Lee said. “I’ve got other skills in my toolbox.”
Lee, 17, plans to major in either business and finance or economics once he graduates from St. Joseph High School next year. Right now, he enjoys learning AP U.S. History and participating in his digital design classes. Cromartie, 17, also plans to become a business major.
“Coming out of Notre Dame with that degree…that sets you up for life,” Cromartie explained.
Despite living less than 10 minutes away from each other, the two have had completely different high school experiences. Cromartie’s school, Penn, is a “powerhouse” with over 3,000 students enrolled, while Lee’s school, St. Joseph, is a Catholic school that is one-third the size of Penn.
Lee considered transferring to Penn before COVID shut down open enrollment. Looking back, he is unsure whether he would have thrived in that environment. St. Joe was always near the top of his list. The smaller class sizes offered him a much more personalized learning experience, not to mention, the catholic school setting helps prepare him for a smooth transition to Notre Dame.
Though both schools are placed in different competitive classes, they share the same conference, meaning that they play each other once a year. Penn won last year’s matchup by a score of 14-4, but Lee and his St. Joe teammates will see them again on May 8. After last year’s game, the two boys posed for a picture, Lee holding Cromartie’s gold pinstriped No. 33 jersey and Cromartie displaying Lee’s columbia blue No. 1 jersey.
“It really is different,” Cromartie said. They had been playing baseball together since they were 9 years old, but this was the first time they ever appeared on opposite sides. “Being able to compete with him and just seeing him in the other dugout was a fun experience. I’m looking forward to it this year.”
Attending different schools makes it challenging for them to hangout. Travel teams rarely ever practice as kids get older, so that part of their relationship is in the past for now. Still, the two best friends go to the mall, ride bikes, or do anything else that will get them out of the house.
There is never a dull moment when they are together. Lee is a “goofball” who is always smiling and cracking jokes around everybody. At first, Cromartie can appear more introverted, but those who are closest to him understand how similar the two really are.
“When you get to know him and talk to him more, he becomes the funniest guy in the world,” Lee said. “He’s really humble and he’s quiet.”
Travel ball success
Cromartie and Lee still play on the same travel team, the 17U Indiana Bulls Black team. They are the last two players standing from the original 9U Bulls. Over the years, they have traveled to play tournaments in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and most memorably, Cooperstown Dreams Park in New York.
At the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, 104 teams from all over the country travel to compete in a week-long single-elimination tournament. Some of MLB’s brightest stars, including Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have played there as kids. Cromartie, Lee and the Bulls advanced all the way to the championship game against Beaver Valley, another highly respected travel program from Pennsylvania.
Leading 11-9 with a runner on second in the final inning, the Bulls coaches called out “Wes” to signal a play. Each play call was named after a parent, this one being dedicated to Jayce’s dad because he was so loud on the sidelines. It was an inside pickoff move that had worked for them multiple times throughout the tournament.
The pitcher took a couple of looks toward second. The outfielders crashed in along with the shortstop, diving to the ground as if the ball was overthrown. As the baserunner took off, the pitcher ran toward him with the ball, throwing it to second to tag him out.
“Yeah, Wes does it again,” Lee’s father yelled from the stands, smiling from ear to ear. The Bulls had done the improbable, becoming the first team from the state of Indiana to ever win the tournament.
Since then, Cromartie and Lee have won many more games together, with their families there to watch them every step of the way. Once this upcoming travel season ends, the next time they will see their boys compete together will be in the green, blue and gold.
The next chapter
“Being able to, as parents, get off of work and go to a Notre Dame game, and your sons are playing in that game is amazing,” Cromartie Sr. said. The family has already discussed picking four or five weekends to see the boys play a three-game series on the road against schools like Miami or Duke, treating it like a travel tournament.
Until they officially step foot on Notre Dame’s campus in the fall of 2024, both players still feel they have work to do. Cromartie is preparing himself to become the best possible player he can be by day one. Lee keeps a “goal board” on his door where he writes everything he wants to accomplish – a 4.0 GPA, a .550 batting average, 25 points in a high school basketball game, and more. He had to make a new board because he achieved everything on the previous one. Lee feels that writing out his goals keeps him humble and motivated. Before they know it, Richard Sr’s prophecy of the two boys playing together in college will come true.
“It’s going to be a surreal feeling,” Lee described. “All the work we put in going through the whole travel ball circuit. The ups and downs, times we were not hitting good, all those moments we wanted to quit…it’s all gonna come forth the moment we step on that field at Notre Dame.”