If, as the adage goes, it takes a village to raise a child, it just might take an Island to make a ballplayer.
In a full-circle summer moment for Bryan Sornas of Chilmark, the former Martha’s Vineyard Sharks batboy is now spending the season as the team’s third baseman.
The moment reflects years of hard work by the 19-year-old, now a rising sophomore infielder at the College of Holy Cross, and the support of a Vineyard baseball community that includes his father, Fabricio; his Little League coach, Gary Simmons; Sharks president and general manager Russ Curran; their respective sons and others.
Fabricio recalled that Bryan first fell in love with baseball, as many boys do, at six or seven years old. As soon as the family had the opportunity to register him for youth baseball on the Island they did, with Mr. Simmons serving as one of his early coaches.
“He was a super high-energy kid, always into the game,” Mr. Simmons said. “You could tell even back then that he was a different player in regard to his focus.”
The Sornas family began regularly attending Sharks games about 10 years ago, around the time Mr. Curran joined the team as president and general manager.
“For a child growing up on Martha’s Vineyard, the Sharks players seem larger than life,” Fabricio said. “They are the heroes playing beneath the lights at the Shark Tank, the young men every Little League player watches and dreams of becoming someday.”
Bryan loved chasing foul balls with his friends, Fabricio said, but he also wanted to get closer to the action. He wanted to sit as close as possible to the dugout, listen to the players and hope for a small interaction — whether a high five, an autograph or a photo with one of the players he admired.
Mr. Simmons put Bryan in contact with Mr. Curran and his son, Mac, who pitched for the Sharks in 2015 and 2016 while attending the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Mac Curran later served as the organization’s pitching coach.
“He helped me offensively and defensively, hitting and pitching,” Bryan Sornas said. “I spent a ton of time at the field with him before and after practices and games.”
Beginning at age 11, Bryan served as a Sharks batboy for several years.
“Being in there, seeing what these guys from all over the country get to do, it opened my eyes, and you see the opportunities that can come from this,” he said. “Being able to pursue baseball as my dream and get a really good education in the process, it’s something that baseball has given to me.”
As a 12-year-old, Bryan competed in home run derbies and traveled to Cooperstown with his Martha’s Vineyard all-star team. As a teenager, he began playing travel baseball for the Boston Expos and other travel programs.
“Bryan and Fab were totally into it,” Mr. Simmons said. “He would have never gotten this far had Fab not been into it.”
Bryan attended Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School from 2020 to 2023 before transferring to Worcester Academy, where he boarded five days a week so he could play under coach Michael Abraham, and returned home on weekends.
A dual citizen of the United States and Brazil, he also joined the U-18 Brazilian National Baseball Team in 2023, playing for two years and serving as a co-captain in 2024.
In the summer of 2024, he accepted an offer to play baseball at Holy Cross, a member of the NCAA Division I Patriot League.
“He’s intense, focused, and he wants nothing more than to be good, to do well and make the plays. He’s also super supportive of his teammates,” Mr. Simmons said.
Bryan said he was just settling into campus life at Holy Cross last fall when Mr. Curran sent him a contract to play for the Sharks during the 2026 summer season. He immediately called his dad to tell him the news.
“He’s one of three or four Island kids who have played for the team,” Mr. Curran said before Saturday night’s home game against the North Shore Navigators, as he watered the infield. Those ranks include Mac Curran, as well as former players John Roberts and Tad Gold. Mr. Curran called Sornas a “good, solid player who will go far as long as he works hard.”
Bryan calls it “a dream” to pursue professional baseball someday, but he also is intent on developing the skills to pursue a career in finance.
And as Bryan continues along this course, Fabricio said he is struck by the fact that children now wait for his son’s high fives and autographs, just as Bryan once did at Sharks games a decade ago.
“That’s where the emotion becomes almost impossible to describe,” Fabricio said.
Especially when one of those children is Bryan’s seven-year-old brother, Lucca, a hopeful batboy and future ballplayer of his own.
“He wants to be a bat boy. He wants to play for the Sharks. He wants to continue the legacy of his brother,” Fabricio said.
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