A Glove Too Big for His Hands: One Calhoun Mother Watches Her Son Leave for the Majors

Tonya Long remembers the glove being too big for his hand.

That’s the image that came back to her on July 12, 2026, the moment Griffin Long’s name was called in the eighth round of the MLB Draft — not the fastball readings or the region honors, but a much smaller boy in the family’s backyard in Calhoun, glove swallowing his fist, playing catch on a hundred ordinary afternoons that quietly built toward this one.

A young Griffin Long fields a ball for the Gordon County recreation team, years before his path to the Tampa Bay Rays began. (Photo courtesy of the Long family)

“I thought of the little boy with the sweetest smile, a glove that was almost too big for him, and countless afternoons playing baseball in the yard,” Tonya said.

Today, that boy leaves home to begin his professional career with the Tampa Bay Rays.

The draft itself stretched across two days, and the Long family didn’t know which one would bring the call. They gathered at the home of Griffin’s sister Kinsley and her husband, Chase, trading updates with Griffin’s agent as the rounds ticked by. “We had been in communication with his agent on and off throughout the day,” Tonya said. “Later in the day, Matt, his agent, told us that it would be day two. We were all so excited but nervous.”

When the Rays finally selected Griffin with the 233rd overall pick, Tonya had her phone trained on the television. “I felt my heart beating so fast, my hands trembling but I was overwhelmed with joy for him,” she said. “Our family was so excited for him, cheering and hugging him so tightly! You could feel the happiness in the room!!”

Griffin’s reaction was quieter, and just as full. “I saw him smile and his eyes were filled with tears,” Tonya said. “He smiles all the time and it was the sweet smile. He was emotional but it was happiness!”

Griffin Long during his senior season at Sonoraville High School. (Photo courtesy of the Long family)

Griffin heads into professional baseball as one of the more intriguing arms in a Tampa Bay draft class that leaned heavily into pitching, and heavily into upside. Scouts have pointed to his changeup as his best pitch — MLB’s own draft coverage called him a “righty from Sonoraville High School who possesses a nasty changeup” — and some evaluators reportedly viewed him as one of the better sleeper arms to come out of Georgia’s high school class this year. He capped his senior season by earning Region 7-AA Player of the Year honors, and had a Kennesaw State commitment waiting in case the phone didn’t ring. It rang.

But at Sonoraville, Griffin was never the only Long chasing something on a field. He and his sisters, Taylor and Kinsley, all grew up playing sports, and the family’s schedule bent around practices and travel tournaments the way a lot of Gordon County families’ schedules do. Taylor, a standout pitcher in her own right, took her game from Sonoraville to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she just closed out a season that put her among the best pitchers in the Southern Conference. She threw the program’s first no-hitter of the year, earned a spot on the Southern Conference All-Tournament Team, and led the Mocs in wins, strikeouts, and innings pitched — the kind of season most college pitchers spend a career chasing. Griffin didn’t just grow up with a sister who played softball. He grew up watching one of the best pitchers in the region do the work, day after day, long before either of them had a scout’s attention. Growing up in a house where that kind of work ethic was just Tuesday probably didn’t hurt his own development.

None of that explains a 95-mph fastball. But it goes a long way toward explaining the kind of person the Rays are getting along with the arm.

There’s a particular kind of quiet that settles into a house the night before someone leaves for good — not a vacation, not a semester, but the real thing. Griffin Long spent his last night in Calhoun last night, before the family loads up today to drive him to Tampa and begin his career in the Rays organization. What happens on the field from here is largely out of the family’s hands now, the way it is for every draft pick learning that talent only gets you to the door.

Griffin himself had only a few seconds to spare before he left, but he made them count. Asked what he wanted Gordon County to know before he goes, his answer was immediate: “I’m very thankful for the endless support that the Sonoraville community and Gordon County has given me. It will always be my hometown. I hope to make my hometown proud.”

He was just as clear about what’s on his mind as he packs. “To enjoy the process and soak it all in, because not very many people get this opportunity,” he said. And when asked what his family gave him to carry into it, he didn’t hesitate: “To give God all the glory for this opportunity. To stay humble, be patient, and never forget who you are and where you’re from.”

That’s the same lesson his mother watched play out in a backyard years ago, glove too big and all.

What isn’t out of their hands is what got him here in the first place: a family that showed up, for him and for each other, long before anyone outside Gordon County knew his name.

About the author: Leah Ozment is a licensed clinical social worker, mental health advocate, and grief educator specializing in parental grief and child loss. She is the founder of Still Here Grief Institute. Her son, Thomas, became an organ donor after his death.