In the early 20th century, Brown University was something of a breeding ground for professional baseball players. But since 2000, only 14 Bears have been drafted. The most recent Brown graduate to reach the majors was shortstop Bill Almon, a first overall pick by the San Diego Padres in the 1974 MLB Draft, and the most recent to reach Triple-A was shortstop Todd Carey in 1997.
“I think it’s naive for anybody to show up in Providence and be like, ‘okay, I need to be focused on how to become a pro,” said Mark Sluys ’19, a former catcher and current Area Supervisor in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ amateur scouting department.
For Charlie Beilenson, academics were always the focus. He traveled across the country as a high schooler, pitching in showcases with the goal of landing a spot at a top academic, Division III program.
“My whole recruitment process was kind of trying to use baseball to get into the best school that I could,” he recalled. “I never really saw myself as a D1 baseball player.”
Even after Brown recruiters saw him pitch at a tournament in Arizona, even after he got word in the middle of a calculus class that his “number one school” wanted him on their team, and even after he became the D1 pitcher he didn’t envision himself as, Beilenson’s number-one priority remained academics. In his view, this dynamic wasn’t a hindrance to his success as a baseball player, but a contributing factor.
“Looking back, all that discipline on the academic side allowed me to pursue baseball with no fear,” Beilenson said, characterizing it as a “playing with house money” mentality. “If it doesn’t work out in the end, I’ve done everything I can to set myself up well on the other side.”
Perhaps it’s that attitude which imbued Beilenson with an unmistakable air of confidence, even while struggling to find results at times in his early days with the Bears.
“He still went into every at-bat thinking — or in his head, knowing — that he was gonna get that batter out,” Burley said of Beilenson’s approach. “It’s not performative at all. He really believes that he’s gonna come in there and get you out.”
“Sometimes he likes to talk a little crap to the hitters, too,” Fogell said of his former bullpen-mate, calling Beilenson “the quirkiest kid I’ve ever met,” a “great teammate,” and a “great competitor.”
Like Beilenson, Fogell arrived at Brown in the fall of 2018, calling it “the best of both worlds being able to play Division I baseball while getting an Ivy League education.” Unlike Beilenson, Fogell got to Providence by moving just about a dozen miles south from Cumberland.
The local left-hander quickly cemented himself as one of the most trusted arms in the Bears’ relief corps, throwing 21 innings across 15 appearances (the third-most on the team) in his rookie season. The last of those appearances came on May 4, 2019, facing Harvard at home. Entering with one out in the ninth inning as the Bears looked to seal a win, Fogell issued an uncharacteristic five-pitch walk, marking just his fourth free pass in Ivy Play. The coaching staff noticed Fogell shaking his hand on the mound in apparent discomfort, and removed him out of caution.
“I’m really bad at taking myself out of ballgames,” Fogell said. “That’s just stupidness, looking back. But in that moment, I’m not taking myself out of the game. I want the ball in my hand.”
Fogell was initially diagnosed with a minor flexor injury in his elbow, and was back on the mound for his first summer ball outing in the New England Collegiate Baseball League on June 8. The next morning, Fogell woke up unable to move his arm. After trying to pitch through what appeared to be yet another flexor injury, Fogell finally underwent Tommy John surgery in September 2019.
While the difficulty note-taking and typing for classwork might have been anticipated, Fogell couldn’t have predicted the twist his road to recovery would take. Just as his throwing programs were beginning to ramp up in the spring, physical therapy and rehab appointments suddenly went virtual due to Covid.
“I remember being in my basement with a butter knife, scraping my scar to try to get rid of scar tissue,” Fogell said. “That’s what my PT was telling me to do, cuz I couldn’t go in and see him.”
Fogell had been working toward the goal of returning in a 2021 season that no longer existed. By the time the long-awaited day arrived in Memphis on February 25, 2022, nerves accompanied it, prompting Fogell to begin warming up an hour and a half before first pitch and draw questions from his pitching coach Christopher Tilton.
“It was two and a half years since I stepped on a baseball field,” Fogell recalled. “I was just so jittery and so anxious to get going.”
Fogell felt “rusty” at first, but ended up putting together an impressive senior season, striking out 46 batters in 39 innings pitched. “The first year back in 2022 was a great year of just learning how to pitch again, and learning what my body needs to progress,” Fogell said.
“He needed that year to kind of get his bearings underneath him,” Burley said. “He was always that good. He just finally got comfortable again and healthy again.”
While Fogell’s teammates weren’t sporting a reconstructed ulnar-collateral ligament, other Bears emerged from the multi-year drought with matured bodies, skills, and mindsets. For Olsen, now an upperclassman without a game of Ivy Play under his belt after Covid unexpectedly interrupted what he called a “whirlwind” freshman spring, the time away from the diamond transformed into an opportunity.
“I think maybe it was kind of a blessing in disguise,” Olsen said. “I would have loved to have been on campus and competing and playing games, but those two years really gave me some time to focus in and hone in on my craft.”
Olsen’s junior year didn’t yield the results he wanted, but it provided insight into what he needed to work on. After an offseason of focused training, Olsen posted an 11.9 K/9 rate his senior year behind a mid-90s fastball and what Burley, who later played at Wake Forest University, called “one of the best breaking balls” he’s ever seen.
When Covid canceled Beilenson’s sophomore and junior seasons, he wasn’t particularly concerned about the ramifications for a potential professional baseball career that he didn’t think possible at the time. It was upon his return to the diamond in 2022 that Beilenson began to imagine playing baseball beyond Brown, no matter the end result.
“What happened my senior year really helped me find the love for the game again,” Beilenson explained. “It was the first time being back in two years, playing on the field with the guys, and it’s like, ‘wow, this is just the most fun thing ever. I have to do this for as long as possible.”
With the help of the NCAA’s decision to allow extra years of eligibility in the wake of the pandemic, Beilenson, Olsen and Fogell each decided to continue their collegiate baseball journeys beyond Brown.
In his first season at Duke, Beilenson “put on a ton of muscle” to achieve a velocity bump while “tinkering with a bunch of new stuff,” adding to his pitch repertoire and altering his existing pitch shapes. In 2024, his tinkering paid off to the tune of an outstanding 2.01 earned run average — the second-best in Division I baseball, just ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays rising superstar Trey Yesavage — and 92 strikeouts in 62.2 innings pitched. Beilenson had become, in Burley’s eyes, “the best reliever in the country.”
“It was kind of just a slow progression of, ‘Oh my gosh, maybe I can. Oh my gosh, maybe I can,’” Beilenson said of his collegiate trajectory. “It was probably five, six years of slowly but surely dialing it in. Maybe a little slower than some other people learned to figure it out, but in the end it worked out.”
With his eyes on pro ball, Olsen spent a season at University of Nebraska-Lincoln before transferring once again to Villanova University.
“I absolutely loved it there,” Olsen said, explaining that Villanova’s coaches “really helped me figure out who I was as a pitcher.”
“He’d always been so talented,” Burley said of Olsen. “He always had the potential. He always had the stuff. It was always right there in front of him. For him to finally at Villanova this past year kind of put it together, and have a season worthy of someone signing him, it’s great to see that finally come to fruition.”
Fogell stayed in New England, going to University of Connecticut for a single dominant season. As a Husky in 2023, Fogell struck out 60 batters in 47.2 innings pitched, posted a 1.89 ERA, and finished with an 8-0 record.
Before the opening game of a series at St. John’s University, UConn pitching coach Joshua MacDonald approached Fogell to inform him that two scouts in the crowd were there to watch him. “As a small town kid from Rhode Island who was undersized and doubted, it was a great feeling to see that people are recognizing the success and what I could do at the next level,” Fogell said.
One week later, Fogell was on the plane ride home after an especially impressive series at Xavier University when MacDonald asked if he had an agent. Fogell hadn’t heard any word that he might be drafted, asking, “Why would I have an agent?”
“He was like, ‘I’m gonna get you one,’” Fogell recalled. “That was kind of the first moment where I was like, holy —, this could actually happen.”