NEW TAMPA — When you’re a kid, you go to bed the night before a game and indulge in visions of hitting a walk-off home run. Or, maybe, what the last out of a no-hitter would feel like.
Sometimes, when you wake up and show up at the ballpark, you manage to do both.
Freedom High School’s David Simpkins made those dreams real within a four-day span last week.
“This is probably the best week I’ve ever had,” Simpkins said.
As a result, his Patriots are off to their best start in years at 6-1 and trying hard not to look forward. Last season, they opened 4-2 but finished 10-15.
With Simpkins pitching every other game or so, most likely, and a supporting cast that believes they are ready for a breakthrough, the Patriots feel like 2026 will be different.
And why not? There seems to be something in the air.
Like, the Simpkins home run ball in a win over Sumner on Feb. 20.
Freedom blew a 6-0 lead in that game and then fell behind 9-6 before rallying to tie the game and force extra innings. Sumner scored in the top of the ninth, but in the bottom half, Simpkins stepped in and crushed a two-run, walk-off homer for a stunning victory.
Four days later, the junior right-hander threw his first no-hitter since he was an 11-year-old little leaguer, striking out 13 against Brandon.
After the final out, Simpkins joyously flung his glove into the air.
“He is on fire. It’s insane,” said the team’s only senior, Gavin Tarr, who remembers Simpkins batting .177 as a freshman, and how hard he was on himself.
Then, in a district tournament game that year, Simpkins hit a big double to help the Patriots to a win.
“He’s been on the rise ever since,” Tarr said.
So locked in are the Patriots these days that some missed the brewing history. When Simpkins tossed his glove skyward, catcher Diego Puente-Marquez wasn’t sure why.
“I figured something must have happened, like a school record or something,” he said. “Then we huddled up and they said it was a no-hitter.”
Even shortstop Luke Ledford didn’t realize it. And that cracked Simpkins up, because on the way to the field that day Ledford said to his pitcher, “How about a no-hitter tonight?”
Simpkins shrugged, “Maybe, why not?”
Then Ledford missed all the drama.
And if any more proof was needed that it might have been the quietest no-hitter ever recorded in history, Simpkins said even his mom didn’t catch what was unfolding.
But Simpkins, he knew.
Around the fifth inning, he glanced at the scoreboard and noticed. He cruised through the sixth inning, and then his nerves kicked in. “I was shaking a little bit,” he said.
He struck out the first batter in the final inning. The second grounded out. The third hit an awkward hopper that Simpkins snagged with an over-the-shoulder stab.
“I almost fell when I caught the ball,” he said. “And I barely made the throw there.”
It wasn’t the first time Simpkins saved his no-hitter. Earlier, he fielded a bunt down the third-base line barehanded and threw out the runner.
“Those were two of the best plays I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Freedom coach Dane Moore.
Most of the football team was on hand to watch, which made Simpkins happy. He had been one of them not long ago, a promising quarterback expected to lift the Patriots from the depths of pigskin purgatory.
In his second-to-last game, he completed 18-of-22 passes for 249 yards and a school-record five touchdowns.
He was the future.
But concussions during his freshman and sophomore seasons forced him to reconsider football.
He followed football in the fall by hitting .308 for the baseball team in the spring, leading it in RBI with 25. He went 5-2 pitching, with 54 strikeouts in 38 innings.
His last four starts that year? 20.2 innings, 32 strikeouts and one earned run allowed.
Baseball it was.
“It was really tough for me, because sophomore year was really fun,” Simpkins said. “Being starting quarterback, because football is such a big thing, was so cool. It was either did I want to have fun playing football with all my friends or play the safe route and train for baseball and just keep ready for the spring season.”
He is throwing in the mid-to-high 80s with a sharp curveball and slider, and his bat has been just as dangerous.
And a walk-off homer and no-hitter would be considered a nice pair of accomplishments for an entire season, much less a four-day span.
There’s little doubt he chose well.
“Star quarterback is pretty cool,” Simpkins said, “but no hitters are pretty sick too.”