Since the time that he first swatted a ball off a tee, Gabriel Larocque has dreamed of the places that baseball might take him.

In recent years, the 16 year-old grade 12 senior at St Charles College has emerged as one of the top catchers in his age bracket in the country, invitations to showcase events and such flooding in with regularity.

Conversations with a host of NCAA Division I programs made it clear: baseball would indeed be uprooting the long-time member of the Sudbury Voyageurs to a location south of the border.

“No matter where I chose to go, it was going to be a long way from home,” Larocque philosophized, having recently announced his commitment to the University of San Francisco Dons beginning in 2026.

True – but the five and a half hour flight from Toronto to the City by the Bay is kind of extreme.

But as Larocque noted, if he had favoured options further east, in Virginia or Tennessee, for instance, then the trip would likely be made by car – meaning an ever greater time commitment for mom and dad to visit.

Speaking of which: as the son of physical educator and Baseball Academy owner Jean-Gilles Larocque, he himself having done a stint of a small handful of post-secondary baseball programs south of the border during his playing days as a catcher, the position of choice for this young lad was somewhat pre-ordained.

“We didn’t really have positions in rookie ball with the pitching machine – but somehow I ended up behind the plate, most every game,” said (Gabriel) Larocque. “I kind of just knew from there that’s where I was going to stay. I like playing other positions – but I love catching.”

“It’s been like that for a long time.”

Truth is that Gabriel Larocque is completely in sync with the role of a catcher, with all of the nuances and layers that accompany what is typically recognized as the toughest job in baseball (or certainly very close to it).

“One of the biggest things for me is being able to separate the hitting from the catching, the defense from the offense,” he said. “I can turn off that switch. I’ve gotten so confident in my defense that if I am having an 0/2 day at the plate, I can make up for it on the defensive side.”

Not that 0/2 days at the plate are very often the norm for this talented young athlete.

At the recent Canadian Futures Showcase in Toronto, an event organized by the Toronto Blue Jays that brings together 150 of the best young diamond talent north of the border, Larocque was a cornerstone to the “Team Royal” entry that won it all. To be sure, it was a complete 25-man effort – but the Sudbury boy was more than a little thrilled with his week.

The tone was set in his very first game, drilling a ball to centerfield in his first at-bat, a tough out that gave way to a double off the wall a couple of innings later. “I was hitting the balls hard; they were good at-bats,” said Larocque. “And my pitch calling was really good.”

All of which are part of what attracted the Dons to Larocque.

As for the other side of the coin, the first Sudbury baseball prospect to commit directly to an NCAA Division I program in quite some time was leaving no stone unturned in making his ultimate selection.

“There’s a lot of things that went into this decision,” said Larocque. “They have a catching coach, which is something that most schools don’t have. And the weather is a big part. As a baseball players, we are outside the whole year, which is good.”

But as is so often the case, this really boiled down to a human connection.

“I don’t think that we stopped talking the whole day,” said Larocque. “Normally, for me, I’ll stop talking and it gets a little awkward. But for me to keep talking the whole day, I knew that this was something different. I didn’t feel like I was talking to a coach; this was like talking to a friend.”

“When I was watching the catching drills, the catchers were talking to me, the coach was talking to me. It just felt really comfortable. It felt good.”

Even in the compressed timespan of an Official (NCAA) Visit, Larocque gleaned some knowledge. “They were doing some really cool stuff with receiving,” he said. “My receiving is pretty good but it can definitely improve a lot. If you can get the border pitches, make it look good and stick it, get a call for your pitcher, that’s what good receiving is.”

With the stress of the recruitment process behind him, Larocque will now engage in his off-season regimen, looking to add a little more bulk to his frame. “I’ve done a good job over three years of gaining weight gradually – but now I want to gain weight and speed,” he said. “I’ve learned, through the recruitment process, that catchers still need speed.”

At first glance, getting heavier and faster appears a tad contradictory.

“The sweet spot lies in what exercises we do; baseball-specific exercises, fast twitch muscle stuff,” noted Larocque.

The work continues, with the all-around athlete who had just finished competing for the St Charles College volleyball team allowing his mind to the dreams that lie beyond the NCAA.

Three major league teams have already added Larocque to the MLB Draft Prospect Link, a centralized information-gathering process that assists both players and teams alike. For now, however, he will allow himself to enjoy the moment.

“I have had zero doubts about my decision,” he said. “There’s been no stress. Just play baseball.”

And wherever that may be, may be.