The Wall Street Journal - 09.08.2019

A12| Friday, August 9, 2019 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

small,L.A.-based outfit that fo-

cuses on fast U.S. races, like Okla-

homa’s Tulsa Tough, where Wil-

liams won two events in June.

Williams serves as kind of Legion’s

player-coach, and its roster is a di-

verse collection of speedsters, in-

cluding Williams’s 26-year-old

brother, Cory, the current Califor-

nia state criterium champ.

Legion wants to be like their

hometown Lakers: they’re out to

win, but they also want to put on a

show, and draw new eyeballs to the

sport.

Cycling life can be a ruthless

grind, especially at the domestic

level, where money is short and

perks are rare. But Williams—a

youth football player who got into

cycling because his father, Calman,

raced—remains enthusiastic about

the doors the sport can open.

“Cycling is in a cynical space,”

Justin told me. “A lot of the older

generation has done things a cer-

tain way—This is the way it is, this

is the way it’s always going to be.”

“I’m not from cycling culture,” he

continued. “I literally come from a

different world. My whole life I had

been told: This is how your life is

gonna be, it’s going to suck, and

there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I just refused to accept that, be-

ing a black kid from Los Angeles.

Getting into cycling, being this privi-

leged world, I was likeMan, I get to

travel with my friends? People pay

for our food?Even with all the neg-

ative hard things that came up in

cycling, it never compared to what I

had to go through growing up. It

never stopped me from believing

and imagining a better future.”

One thing is certain: road cy-

cling in the U.S. is overdue for new

ideas. There’s promising growth in

mountain biking, gravel, and ad-

venture-style racing, but classic

road-racing events are struggling

to stay relevant. Prize money is

shrinking; sponsors have been hard

to retain. Williams and Legion, who

competed in the “USA Crits” series

this year, feel there’s potential to

re-energize criteriums, frantic

events that resemble Nascar on

bikes, and can be held in a compact

downtown course, even at night.

“Justin’s shaking it up,” says Ba-

hati, who recalls Williams as “su-

per quiet” as a youngster. “Hope-

fully the top of the sport will pay

attention, and bring in some fresh

faces and younger people...because

that’s what’s got to change.”

Cycling fans are noticing. Legion

has an active social media pres-

ence—-Cory rides with a helmet

camera and edits races into snappy

videos he showcases on Instagram

and YouTube—and the team has

landed attractive sponsors like

Rapha clothing and Specialized

bikes.

“Justin’s about more than win-

ning—he’s fueled by what he can

do to make the sport more accessi-

ble,” said Specialized rep Fiona

Swartz.

A Guy Threw

96 MPH. He’s

NowaPro.

FROM LEFT: NATHAN PATTERSON; CHRISTIAN PATTERSON

Nathan Patterson was a software salesman.

A viral video turned him into a prospect.

Former U.S. cycling phenom Justin Williams finds success—and happiness—by starting an innovative domestic team.

DANNY MUNSON

Rapha’s Jake Rosenbloum called

Williams and Legion “amazing am-

bassadors.”

“If we’re going to make cycling a

premier sport, something kids as-

pire to do, we have to celebrate

what Justin’s doing, because he’s

creating more mainstream appeal,”

Rosenbloum said.

Williams admitted he’d still love

taking another shot at racing over-

seas in the world tour, just to go

shoulder to shoulder with the best

of the best.

“If I win a race in Europe, it may

change the way people look at rac-

ing here,” he said. “It will defi-

nitely shut some people up.”

In the meantime, Legion has big

plans for the United States.

“My goal for next year?” Wil-

liams said. “We’re going to win ev-

erything we show up to.”

That’s a heady goal.

But Justin Williams is delivering

for American cycling. He has the

jerseys to prove it.

SPORTS

Justin Williams kept

his newest stars and

stripes jersey hang-

ing in his bedroom

for a few days. Before

trying it on, he

wanted to look at it, admire it, take

it in, what it all meant.

He had won quite a few of these

jerseys, going back more than a de-

cade ago, to when Williams was a

teenage cycling phenom riding out

of South Central Los Angeles. But a

new one still meant something to

him—its red, white and blue flag

pattern signifying that Williams

was once more, at age 30, a U.S.

national champion.

“It’s overwhelming,” Williams

said. “It’s everything you’ve worked

for, from when you’re a kid.”

Williams’s latest stars and

stripes is for winning the 2019 U.S.

men’s national amateur criterium

race, defending his title from the

year before. Williams also won the

road racing championship in 2018,

but it’s criteriums, or “crits”—

high-energy, multi-lapped, sharp-

cornered races where riders bump

shoulder-to-shoulder and speeds

push over 40 mph—where he is the

man to beat.

Here’s the truth: When Justin

Williams shows up to a race, the

rest of the field is probably fight-

ing for second place.

“It’s phenomenal,” says Wil-

liams’s longtime cycling friend

Rahsaan Bahati, a former national

champion himself. “He’s the fastest

guy in the U.S. right now.”

It’s a stirring rebirth for a cy-

clist who was tapped early in his

career to be an elite American tal-

ent. Williams won a lot when he

was young—he took the under-

national criterium championship

when he was 19, and was part of a

track pursuit title in 2009 with

teammates including Taylor Phin-

ney. His ascension would stall,

however, as he grew disillusioned—

as an African-American who grew

up in the inner city, Williams said

he felt a “disconnect” from the Eu-

rope-based sport and its stubborn

structures—and a promising

sprinter wound up coming back

and deciding to stay home.

“I would say the U.S. National

team didn’t have the right system

to develop a rider like me,” Wil-

liams says. “I think that was an op-

portunity missed.”

Now Williams is trying to rein-

vent a corner of the cycling world

with a team of his own: Legion, a

D

uring a rain delay at a

Colorado Rockies game

last month, Nathan

Patterson tried his luck

at a speed-pitch chal-

lenge booth. The first ball he fired

reached 90 mph. The next two, 94.

On his sixth and final attempt, the

screen behind him lit up with an

even gaudier number: 96.

Patterson, a 23-year-old software

salesman, had barely played orga-

nized baseball since his junior year

of high school. Yet there he was, a

random fan off the street, throwing

harder than most major leaguers.

Two days later, Patterson’s

brother uploaded a video of his ex-

ploits online. It went viral. Two

days after that, Patterson received a

call from the Oakland Athletics of-

fering him a minor-league contract.

And last week, Patterson was in Ar-

izona signing the deal that made

him one of the unlikeliest profes-

sional baseball players in history.

Patterson’s story sounds almost

impossible, like a wish-fulfillment

fantasy from a cheesy Hollywood

script. But his journey from a no-

name to a major-league prospect is

so much more: It’s a testament to

both the power of social media and

one man’s quest to ensure no player

like Patterson gets overlooked again.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today

without Rob and Flatground,” Pat-

terson said.

“Rob” is Rob Friedman. He’s an

attorney by trade living in the At-

lanta suburbs. In the baseball

world, however, he goes by some-

thing else: the Pitching Ninja.

That’s the name of Friedman’s

Twitter account, which has amassed

more than 155,000 followers by

posting clips of the filthiest pitches

thrown in the majors every night,

along with tips on technique. He

also has a publicly available data-

base filled with GIFs showing major

leaguers’ mechanics and how they

grip their pitches, many submitted

by the players themselves.

Pitching Ninja’s popularity ex-

ploded in April 2018 when his Twit-

ter account was briefly suspended

at the request of MLB for the unau-

thorized posting of clips. His ban-

ishment ignited outcry from fans

and pitchers who used the account

as a training tool. Pitching Ninja

was quickly reinstated, and Fried-

man now works with MLB as an in-

dependent contractor.

Friedman had the idea of doing

more last Thanksgiving, after he

was directed to a grainy video of a

pitcher in the independent leagues,

Taylor Grover, throwing 100 mph.

Friedman retweeted it. The Cincin-

nati Reds organization signed Gro-

ver almost immediately.

That, coupled with a video of an-

other independent league pitcher

throwing 102, sparked an epiphany:

If those flamethrowers were having

trouble getting discovered, how

many other talented players were

going unnoticed?

“If there are guys throwing 102

falling between the cracks, then

what about the kid throwing 88 in

Kansas that no one’s seen that

could help a college team?” Fried-

man said.

Right around New Year’s, Fried-

man launched a new account called

Flatground, dedicated to helping

players of all ages be seen—espe-

cially those who lack the resources

to travel to expensive college show-

cases every weekend. Users post

videos of themselves on Twitter

tagging Flatground and Friedman

retweets them. He asks for submis-

sions to include measurable data

such as velocity and spin rate when

possible, along with the player’s

height, weight, GPA and other rele-

vant information.

A video retweeted by Flatground

is liable to be seen by a dedicated

group of followers that includes the

powers-that-be across college and

professional baseball.

“There are still diamonds that

get looked over in piles of rocks,”

said Grover, now in Double-A with

the Baltimore Orioles.

Patterson is Friedman’s most

public success story yet. A high-

school second baseman in Kansas,

Patterson’s initial playing days

came to an abrupt end when he

fractured his elbow during his ju-

nior season. After graduation, he

ran a landscape business for a

while. Growing restless, he typed

into Google “coolest places to live

when you’re young and single.”

That prompted him to move to Aus-

tin, Texas, and later Nashville,

Tenn., where he forged a career in

sales for a software company.

Everything started changing in

August 2018, when he attended a

Triple-A game in Nashville and first

stepped into a radar gun booth. He

threw five pitches, the last one trav-

eling 96 mph. Patterson was

stunned.

“I thought it was a joke,” he said.

“I thought they jack up the gun to

make you excited to pay another

dollar to throw another ball.”

It wasn’t a mistake. Not long af-

ter, Patterson threw off a mound at

a local facility and surpassed 90

mph, even though he had hardly

pitched competitively in his life. He

began to explore baseball as a pro-

fession. He first tagged Flatground

in a video of him pitching in Janu-

ary, while wearing a cast on his left,

non-throwing arm because of an ac-

cident on an electric longboard.

After a Friedman retweet, the

video had tens of thousands of

views by the time Patterson woke

up the next morning. Over the next

week, around 20 colleges and five

pro teams reached out to him ex-

pressing interest, including the A’s,

who monitored him in a local men’s

league. The July video of Patterson

in Colorado, which has since been

retweeted more than 3,000 times,

sealed it.

Patterson has been assigned to

Oakland’s rookie team in Mesa,

Ariz. He attributes his sudden ve-

locity spike to a late growth

spurt—he was about 5-foot-8, 140

pounds in high school and is now

6-foot-1, 185 pounds.

Regardless of where Patterson

goes from here, his existence shows

that despite technological advances

and the assumption that all legiti-

mate talent has been accounted for,

scouting is far from foolproof.

Justin Williams Can’t Stop Winning Bike Races

CYCLING|JASON GAY

BYJAREDDIAMOND Nathan Patterson hit 96 mph in a

speed-pitch challenge booth. The

Oakland A’s signed him to a contract

after a video of his feat went viral.