MLB All-Star and Omaha native Alec Bohm winning over fans with performance on, off the field

The Kansas City Royals game played through the car radio as Jeff Hovden drove south on a Friday night. Jeff and his son Jack had tickets for the next day.

During the drive, the broadcast team noted the strong Omaha contingent in attendance, many sporting jerseys with the name "Bohm" across the back. The next day the Hovdens experienced it in person.

"It was pretty impressive," said Hovden, a Phillies fan and car wash soap salesman from Vermillion, South Dakota.

The "Bohm" on the many jerseys and shirts during that late August series was Alec Bohm, an Omaha Roncalli graduate and the starting third baseman for the Phillies. It's been a fast rise for Bohm, who earlier this year became the first Omaha-area native in more than 25 years to be named a Major League Baseball All-Star.

Bohm, who overcame an injury in high school that nearly ended his career, has built a growing fan base thanks to his performance on the field - and his charitable efforts off of it.

Among those flocking to see Bohm play are his parents, Dan and Lisa. The Bohms sold their Elkhorn home and the ownership to their title insurance business to traverse the country in a mobile home so they can watch their son in person. More and more Bohm fans are following suit down those same roads.

The Phillies, this year's National League East champion, are hoping to reach the World Series for the second time in the last three years. Bohm is expected to be a critical piece in their postseason run.

"I think as a player, we know what he's going to do, we know what he can do in the postseason as well," teammate Bryce Harper told mlb.com. "He'll show up when the lights turn on."

All roads lead to Bohm

The Phillies' August series in Kansas City was the perfect crossroads for Bohm fans. Those in Omaha ventured south while the fans at Wichita State, Bohm's alma mater, headed northeast. Figure in the Philly fans who travel well from anywhere when their team is doing well and it added up to a huge weekend for those in Phillies colors.

"I'm grateful for that," said Bohm, who was taken aback by the swarm of jerseys bearing his name.

It wasn't the first time his fans came out in force. In Dan Bohm's judgment, the number of jerseys with his son's name seen in Kansas City was tops with an estimated 100 family members and close friends alone in attendance. He said Denver a few months earlier ranks second.

Bohm fans are witnessing one of the fastest rising stars in the majors. He finished the season with 97 RBI and a career-high 44 doubles, the second most in the National League this season.

"It's cool to see (fans) going to Colorado, or wherever we go, you see a couple of jerseys in the stands," said Bohm, now in his fifth full season with the Phillies.

Brenda Makovetz was among the fans in Kansas City sporting a Bohm jersey – a cherished birthday present from her son. Makovetz and her husband, Jim, traveled from just outside of Philadelphia to watch the game and Brenda's new favorite player.

Bohm quickly moved up the minor league ladder and broke into the big leagues only two years after he was drafted in 2018 with the third overall pick.

"He's a real diehard player," said Makovetz. "I think he really is focused and always tries to do really well."

Bohm graduated from Roncalli in 2015, the same year another Bohm fan, Jordan Engel, got her diploma at Scotus Catholic High School in Columbus. Jordan and her mom, Pat Engel, made the trip to Kansas City for the Phillies' Aug. 23 game against the Royals.

Pat wore a Bohm jersey and said she notices the growing Bohm fan base.

"Definitely," she said. "In May we went out to Denver when the Phillies played out there. You can tell the Alec Bohm fan base out there also."

'He'll never play another game of baseball'

Bohm's career trajectory may have been hard to imagine when he was 16.

"My first driver's license has me at 5-10 or 5-11 and 180 or something like that," said Bohm, who is listed at 6 feet, 5 inches tall and 225 pounds. "I steadily kept growing, like an inch a year."

"He looked like he was 12!" mom Lisa Bohm said with a laugh when reminded of her son's first driver's license.

Former Wichita State baseball coach Todd Butler got a tip about Bohm and traveled to Omaha. He was under 6 feet and "a little bit chunky," Butler recalled.

The Wichita State coach saw Bohm again a year later. "Are you the same guy?" Butler asked, only half joking.

Bohm would soon be the latest commodity exported down the Omaha-to-Wichita pipeline established several years earlier with Millard North graduates Conor and Casey Gillaspie. Both ended up being first-round picks in the MLB draft after playing at Wichita State.

Bohm's hitting ability caught Butler's attention.

"The one thing that was different from him and a lot of players that I've coached in my career was his vision to see the ball. It was exceptional," said Butler, now an assistant baseball coach at the University of Oklahoma.

That exceptional vision developed outside the Bohms' home in Elkhorn.

"When he was 5 or 6 years old, we were doing tee work out in front of the house ... He was hitting BBs out of the air with a little dowel stick," said Dan Bohm.

Creighton baseball coach Ed Servais remembers what he was thinking after watching Bohm during his high school years.

"If he stays healthy, he's going to be a tremendous offensive player at the big league level," said Servais.

Not everybody on the college level saw Bohm's future as a hitter.

"I pitched at a camp at Creighton and they wanted to see me pitch again," said Bohm. "But my arm kind of hurt and I didn't really want to pitch."

Any notion of pitching was permanently shelved in the summer between his junior and senior years at Roncalli. He was playing for a local summer team in a tournament in Lincoln when he fell and broke his elbow.

"He was going around first base playing on a horrible, horrible field," recalled Steve Russell, who coached the summer team. "I'm like, 'I wish this would've happened to me in the parking lot, not to my best player.'"

Bohm's elbow ordeal ended up being a bigger threat toward his baseball future than any prolonged batting slump.

"Snapped the growth plate right off his elbow," said Dan Bohm.

After surgery, in which a screw and a plate were inserted, Bohm's elbow wouldn't heal. It became infected.

When well-known Lincoln orthopedic surgeon Dr. Doug Tewes learned of the situation, he delivered an urgent message to Lisa Bohm.

"You need to bring him in," she remembered him saying. "If that infection goes to the bone, he'll never play another game of baseball."

Alec Bohm spent two days in the hospital.

"It was a scary time," said Dan Bohm.

Jersey boys and girls

As much as the Bohm fan following has grown, it hasn't translated into merchandise sales at the local sporting retail stores. Of the major Omaha outlets - the Scheels store and the three Rally House locations - none has a Bohm jersey to sell.

Meanwhile, David Austin, who lives just outside of Wichita, purchased a Bohm jersey at a local mall two years ago when the Phillies played in the World Series. Austin, who wore it to the Aug. 25 game in Kansas City, said he's grateful for more than the thrills Bohm provides on the field.

Not long after being drafted, Bohm and his family launched the Alec Bohm Foundation.

"I contacted his foundation and, through his dad, (they) sent me a couple of signed Wichita State items. No charge," said Austin, who works at a nonprofit that helps individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. "We were able to use it to raise money for our nonprofit, which just made me like the kid so much more."

Through 2022, Bohm has given $675,000 of his own money to the foundation, according to online tax documents. The foundation has helped drill about a half-dozen water wells in Africa. It's also involved with Nemours Children's Health hospital in Philadelphia and Covenant House Pennsylvania, which serves runaway, homeless and trafficked youth in the Philadelphia area.

One of the local beneficiaries of Bohm's foundation has been Roncalli High School, where next month Bohm will be inducted into the school's athletic hall of fame. His foundation has donated money and athletic equipment to the school, said Dan Bohm.

Even though Bohm no longer lives in Omaha, he said it's still home. "It'll always be home."

Despite Bohm's efforts on and off the field, he doesn't appear to have the broad local recognition of other Nebraska-born athletes. Russell, Bohm's former summer team coach, thinks he knows the reason.

Russell said it'd be different if Bohm played at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln or Creighton. He cited Conor Gillaspie, the former big leaguer who also attended Wichita State, as an example.

"Conor finally got his jersey up at Millard North, but it had Wichita State," said Russell. "Then they took the Wichita State down and put the (San Francisco) Giants up when he hit his first (playoff) home run."

Gillaspie's biggest baseball moment by far was his postseason homer in the 2016 National League Wild Card game for the Giants.

Bohm should have plenty of opportunities to make his own big moment.

The Phillies will face either the Milwaukee Brewers, New York Mets or Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League Division Series. Only the Los Angeles Dodgers, who led all of baseball with 98 wins, appear to be the Phillies' biggest stumbling block toward returning to the World Series.

Bohm will have fans in Nebraska pulling for the Phillies. Pat Engel will be one of them. A while back she bought a shirt through Bohm's foundation. Dan Bohm messaged her directly afterward.

"I'm happy to follow a Nebraska kid and love what he's doing," she said.

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