“My thought process was always that if I had on a uniform, I had an opportunity,” Jon Berti, Major League Baseball (MLB) player and Bowling Green State University (BGSU) alum, said.
Berti’s continuous hard work and motivation gave him many opportunities to eventually become one of the most successful BGSU athletes in recent history.
Berti grew up in Troy, Michigan, and lived with his parents, Tom and Betty, as well as his two older brothers, Steve and Mike.
His brothers pushed him competitively throughout his childhood. They influenced him to learn a variety of sports and the skillsets that came with them.
Tom Berti was a collegiate and former professional baseball player who played a year and a half in the Detroit Tigers minor league system. This allowed Jon Berti to get professional baseball advice from a young age.
Jon Berti really started to take baseball seriously when he turned 14 and joined the Michigan Muddogs travel baseball organization. He played for the Muddogs through his 18-year-old season.
The Muddogs were coached by Tim Penz, who recognized Jon as a unique player on and off the baseball field.
“His baseball IQ was one of his biggest strengths. Jon was also absolutely a hard worker,” Penz said. “He was the typical first one there and the last one to leave. He always put extreme focus into what we were doing.”
During his time with the Muddogs, Jon Berti credited Penz with helping him learn how to become disciplined.
“We had fun, but he also held us to a high standard when it came to the fundamentals. I definitely think it carried throughout my career because any coach I’ve had has given me credit for being discipline and fundamentally sound,” he said.
Berti also learned leadership skills during his time with the Muddogs, which carried over into how he presents himself as a leader in the MLB.
“Everyone followed him. Jon was never a vocal leader, but he led by example, and his teammates respected that,” Penz said.
After the Muddogs, Berti originally got drafted in the 2008 MLB Draft out of high school to the Oakland A’s in the 36th round. However, he chose to come to Bowling Green instead.
“There wasn’t really going to be any money involved with a 36th-round pick, so it was really just a feather in his cap that scouts were looking at him,” Tom Berti said.
Berti’s decision to come to Bowling Green for baseball was a relatively easy one for him. He went on a visit in the fall of his senior year, where he immediately loved the facilities and campus.
On top of that, the baseball program was on an upward trajectory.
“The baseball program was just coming off of a 2008 season where they won the conference. They were a really good program, and I just wanted to be a part of it,” Jon Berti said.
As a freshman, Jon Berti helped the 2009 Falcons repeat as Mid-American Conference (MAC) champions and accumulate a 28-22 (18-8) record. It was a season he looked back fondly on.
“Winning the MAC title was awesome. I still remember that final out and storming the field. We were dogpiling and celebrating with teammates,” Jon Berti said. “I still have the ring we got for it, and it’s one of my cherished positions.”
Jon Berti was a huge reason for their success, with his freshman season being one of the best for any first-year player in BGSU baseball history.
Despite playing shortstop in high school, Jon Berti became a starting corner outfielder for the Falcons. This helped develop his positional versatility, which would later be his ticket into the MLB.
Playing different positions didn’t phase Berti because he had a team mindset with only one goal in mind.
“Whenever I got an opportunity, I wasn’t worried about anything else except helping us win,” Jon Berti said.
Moving into his second year with the Falcons, the opportunity to become a focal point of success for the Falcons moving forward motivated Jon Berti.
“The first year’s success motivated me to work even harder to see how much better I could get,” Jon Berti said. “That’s what motivated me going into my sophomore year.”
His 2010 sophomore season continued his rise in the ranks of collegiate baseball prospects.
He batted a whopping .423 with 10 doubles. He also had six triples, knocked in 33 RBI and stole 29 bases.
Bowling Green won the MAC East division and finished second overall in the conference that season. Jon Berti Berti also became the team’s starting shortstop.
Jon Berti then transitioned to his third and final season with Bowling Green, where he batted .356 with six triples. He also knocked in 26 RBI and had a collegiate career-best 23:23 walk-to-strikeout ratio.
Overall, Berti was a career .386 hitter with the Falcons. He finished with 17 home runs, 93 RBI, 56 stolen bases and only 83 strikeouts.
His success at Bowling Green allowed him to get drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 18th round of the 2011 MLB draft. He signed with Toronto after three seasons with the Falcons.
“I felt like it was the best opportunity for me to play at the professional level,” Jon Berti said. “I felt like Toronto valued me as a player coming out of the draft.”
Jon Berti reflected on his era with the Falcons and what it meant to him to play at Bowling Green.
“I loved my time at Bowling Green. I had three amazing years there, and some of my teammates are still some of my closest friends today,” he said.
Jon Berti continued to see individual statistical success once he was in the Blue Jays minor league system. However, he struggled to move up to the MLB, cementing himself as a mainstay with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the AA affiliate. He spent eight years total, from 2011-2018, with the Blue Jays minor league system.
Berti got a long-awaited and well-deserved phone call from the Toronto Blue Jays on Sept. 26, 2018, calling him up to the MLB.
“We (the New Hampshire Fisher Cats) had just won the Eastern League championship. I went home for about 10 days, and then I got a call from Toronto. They asked if I had been staying ready because they needed a guy due to injuries,” Jon Berti said. “I ended up flying to Toronto and making my debut the next day. It was a whirlwind.”
He ended up playing the last four games of the 2018 regular season with the Blue Jays before heading to free agency. He eventually signed with the Don Mattingly-led Miami Marlins for the 2019 season.
He spent the next five seasons in Miami. He built a name for himself around the MLB as an extremely versatile defender who could play anywhere on the diamond.
He was also an exceptional base stealer with the Marlins. He led the MLB in stolen bases in the 2022 season with 41.
“I loved my years in Miami. We made the playoffs twice in the five years I was there, which was awesome,” Jon Berti said.
Jon Berti got traded to the New York Yankees this past season and won the American League pennant. They lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2024 World Series.
“Being able to play in the playoffs and make it to the World Series was really cool,” Jon Berti said. It’s an experience that I’ll take with me for the rest of my life.”
On top of being a successful MLB player, Berti is also now helping out his hometown to grow youth baseball in the area. He works closely with League Sports, an organization attempting to build a youth sports complex in the city with a field that will be named after Berti.
“Anytime I get the chance to give back to the communities that have given me so much, like the Troy area and Bowling Green, I will try my best to help them out in any way I can,” Jon Berti said.
President of League Sports and Jon Berti’s former middle school teacher, Patrick Koneval, explained why he was a clear choice to name one of the fields after.
“We like people that work hard, and Jon is the perfect embodiment of that,” Koneval said. “Jon helps us because the work ethic he represents also represents us.”
Jon Berti is currently a free agent for the 2025 MLB campaign after officially being released by the Yankees this offseason.
As Bowling Green’s baseball program continues to grow, future alumni will try to follow in Jon Berti’s footsteps to become the next Falcon in the MLB.
