When Mitchell Tolman celebrated his first birthday, his father, Bill, got him a wiffle ball, bat and tee. When the infant approached the tee, he naturally took to his right-hand side. But Bill had a different vision for his son. He picked up his one-year old, placed him on the left-handed side and adjusted his hands.

“I knew that would be beneficial,” Bill said. “I always was obsessed with making him swing from the left-hand side.”

Mitchell eventually took to his unnatural side and became the coveted left-handed hitting middle infielder that opposing coaches envied. Soon, Mitchell was a name Oregon hitting coach Mark Wasikowski couldn’t forget during his coaching days at Arizona.

“He was a left-handed hitting middle infielder that had a real aptitude to hit,” Wasikowski said.

After a failed Cal State Fullerton recruitment, Mitchell was without direction late in his senior year. He considered going into the military or attending university as a normal student. It was after an Oregon-UCLA game when Mitchell approached Wasikowski.

“He said if I wanted to walk-on here I could, but that’d be my only opportunity to play,” Mitchell said. “I did it and didn’t expect much out of it. I didn’t expect to start or anything. I just wanted to learn from it and maybe go back home the next year to a junior college.”

Mitchell started 47 games his freshman season hitting .315 with 37 RBIs and was honored as a freshman Louisville Slugger All-American.

“We jumped on and it’s been clearly a good decision,” Wasikowski said.

Bill, who coached Mitchell until he entered high school, was never easy on him.

“He would always be, not hard on me, but tough on me,” Mitchell said. “(He) thinks I need to do things and he’d make sure to let me know.”

In his final years of coaching Mitchell, Bill didn’t allow him to swing the bat until he had two strikes.

“At the time, it was a big deal and he was all mad at me and frustrated,” Bill said.

The reasoning?

So Mitchell could become a comfortable two-strike hitter. Bill believed comfort in a two-strike situation made a hitter more patient to hit the best possible pitch in the at-bat.

“I remember doing it in summer ball a lot and it’s tough watching some pitches go by and knowing that you’re starting yourself in a hole,” Mitchell said.“But in the long-run I’m really glad I did it.”

Last season in 219 at-bats, Mitchell hit .315 with the highest walk-to-strikeout ratio (57.4) on the team with a minimum of 145 at bats.

When Mitchell can’t sleep or is stressed — no matter how late in the night — he heads to the player development area at PK Park.

“I’ll hit off the tee for an hour and half,” Mitchell said. “I like doing things on my own a lot because it’s relaxing for me and I can clear my head and think about stuff.”

It’s a practice he’s been committed to since his first birthday. The only difference is now he’s using real bats, real balls and doesn’t get lost on his way to the left-hand side of the plate.

Follow Andrew Bantly on Twitter @andrewbantly