FALMOUTH, Mass. — Justin Osterhouse thought his coach had been fired. On May 23, Osterhouse and his Purdue Fort Wayne teammates received an email from the athletics department about a mandatory team meeting.

Osterhouse had no clue what was happening. Then, the team got a message in their group chat from head coach Doug Schreiber saying he wouldn’t be at the meeting. Everyone started panicking. They thought Schreiber, a 26-year veteran, was gone.

It wasn’t until Osterhouse saw the softball team also at the meeting that he realized something else was up.

Purdue Fort Wayne had fired them all. The school discontinued its baseball and softball programs due to budget cuts. Schreiber described it as a gut punch. Osterhouse felt horrible for his teammates and coaches.

“Those are my best friends,” Osterhouse said. “It was just a terrible situation.”

The news marked another wild turn in Osterhouse’s college career. Across two years at PFW, he slashed .339/.453/.636 with 25 homers. His success earned him a spot in MLB’s Home Run Derby X in Fort Wayne last summer. On May 15, he produced what some called one of the greatest college baseball performances ever: four homers, including a walk-off grand slam, and the win as pitcher.

That all culminated in Osterhouse’s transfer to Alabama earlier this month. Now, the Grand Rapids, Michigan, native is preparing for the Crimson Tide with the Cape Cod Baseball League’s Falmouth Commodores, rounding out his crazy year.

“I've said to him several times, ‘I just want you to know you are living my best life,” Osterhouse’s dad, James, said. “I might have given a body part when I was his age to do the things he’s doing.”

For Falmouth so far, Osterhouse has been phenomenal. Defensively, he’s played second, shortstop, third base and left field. He’s also slashed .278/.366/.306 and has started to get hot with two two-hit games recently.

“I feel like I've been seeing the ball well,” Osterhouse said Wednesday. “Previously I feel like I've been trying to do a little too much. So all I was trying to do today was just see it deep, and that worked out pretty well.”

He started similarly in his sophomore year. Pitchers knew his name after he broke out as a freshman, hitting .355 with nine homers. In his second season, Osterhouse was often pitched around, and when he did get something to hit, he again swung too big.

Osterhouse stressed that he’s a “weird hitter.” He typically starts slow and heats up by the season’s end. Despite hitting .204 in March, Osterhouse decided to let the barrel do the work and transfer his weight more, as recommended by Schreiber. The strategy worked, bumping his average to .328 by the end of the year.

Schreiber said that competitiveness makes Osterhouse one of the best players he’s ever coached. He knows when something is off. And he grinds to fix it. When everything lines up, Schreiber added, Osterhouse has “light tower power.”

“I don't say this about too many guys. He is (as) close to a five-tool player that I've ever had,” Schreiber said.

That drive was present before Osterhouse arrived at PFW. Despite his eventual stardom, he wasn’t recruited heavily out of high school. Many of his offers came from Division III schools for both baseball and football, where he shined as the quarterback for Forest Hills Central High School (Michigan).

But Osterhouse wanted to play baseball. After he received an offer from PFW following a showcase, his father urged him to think about committing. The coaches loved him, and it was a D-I school where he could play immediately.

He eventually committed in November 2022 and instantly started losing weight from football. Within two months, Osterhouse’s dad said he went from 215 to 175 pounds by using a strict workout regimen and diet.

“Once he realized football was probably done forever, he literally went to work,” his father said. “He wouldn't even eat a gummy bear, not one half of a cookie for that two-month window. He was just crazy.”

At PFW, Osterhouse played numerous positions. He began in right field. He moved to first base after the Mastodons’ starter got hurt. He even pitched a few innings. This year, he played more natural positions of second base and shortstop.

Last summer, when Osterhouse played for the Great Lakes League’s Muskegon Clippers, he did the same. Head coach Logan Fleener said it helped him keep Osterhouse, an RBI machine, in the lineup routinely.

“When you're capable of playing other positions, being a guy like Ben Zobrist and those other utility guys, it's just different ways to help your team,” Fleener said. “With a bat like his, what you want is him in that nine every single day.”

Still, Osterhouse’s bat is his calling card. At a small school like PFW, he said that can often be overlooked. But he began commanding national attention last summer.

Osterhouse’s freshman year ended prematurely due to a broken hand diving back to first base. Still, he was asked to participate in the Home Run Derby X by Fort Wayne Tincaps general manager Mike Nutter.

Schreiber recommended Osterhouse to Nutter because he knew he’d thrive with 8,000 fans screaming his name. Osterhouse lived up to Schreiber’s words. Though his father said he’d never seen someone swing so poorly in the 30-second warmup round, Osterhouse’s adrenaline kicked in once the competition started.

In the modified derby format with four teams of three facing off and points awarded for target hits and defensive catches, Osterhouse dominated. Alongside his teammates of former MLB outfielder Nick Swisher and professional women’s baseball player Alex Hugo, he scored 20 points in the first round to win 58-56.

Hugo said the group was a “magic combination.” With Swisher as their “hype man,” Osterhouse was the “game changer.” He slammed the walk-off blast to claim the overall victory. Osterhouse described it as then-the best day of his life.

“Playing in that kind of environment, when there's that many people watching, is what I want to do,” Osterhouse said. “So that was really the first taste of it. Everyone's rooting, cheering on my name. It was really cool.”

But the derby was only the first act in Osterhouse’s breakout year. His encore came in May.

Versus Wright State on May 15, Osterhouse launched three homers through six innings. Still, the Mastodons trailed 17-10 entering the ninth. Osterhouse had already hit three long balls against Bowling Green on March 18. This time he took it to another level.

Though he didn’t pitch often with PFW, Osterhouse took the mound in the ninth. He shut down the Raiders, allowing just one walk. Because of his time on the bump, Osterhouse said his bat felt like it was 1,000 pounds when he hit in the bottom half.

That didn’t affect him. In the final frame, PFW clawed back to tie the game 17-17. Osterhouse came up with the bases loaded.

First pitch, foul ball. Osterhouse knew it was a terrible swing. But then, he struck gold.

On a low curveball, he drilled a walk-off grand slam to left center, completing an 11-run ninth inning and giving PFW a 21-17 win. Osterhouse said he blacked out rounding the bases until his teammates mobbed him at home.

After the game, Nutter’s friend texted him Osterhouse’s stat line. Nutter immediately sent it to MLB’s social media team, not expecting a response. But soon after, it was trending all over the internet. Osterhouse didn’t realize the magnitude of his performance until his phone began blowing up.

Osterhouse finished with four dingers, eight RBIs, the walk-off, a stolen base and was the winning pitcher. MLB.com reporter Jason Foster noted it “might be the greatest day ever produced on a baseball field.”

“When I got that post, I was like, ‘Okay, this is real,’” Osterhouse said. “I felt like I was dreaming until all this stuff started coming in.”

Through the Home Run Derby X and that monster game, Osterhouse forged a deep connection with Fort Wayne. That’s why PFW’s closure hit him hard.

Though he was already planning to enter the portal, the news let him submit his name early. His dad called his recruitment a “three-day feeding frenzy.” He thinks Osterhouse was called by 75% of the schools in the country.

Osterhouse then scheduled official visits before arriving on the Cape. In five days, they flew to LSU, then drove to Alabama and Georgia before flying to North Carolina.

Alabama’s presentation was the best. Osterhouse said they showed a slideshow that talked little about baseball and more about how the program would help Osterhouse post-graduation, something his dad had preached his entire life. He eventually committed on June 7.

Now, Osterhouse has taken his talents to Falmouth. It’s just the latest stop on his journey.

Osterhouse was devastated by PFW’s closing. But he was never fazed. Those around him know his rollercoaster year has prepared him to make the jump to the SEC, Falmouth and eventually professional baseball.

“He's got as good a chance as anybody that I've coached to to make it to the next level and then stay up there, too,” Schreiber said.

Noah Nussbaum is the beat reporter for the Falmouth Commodores. You can read all of his articles on the Commodores here.