One of state’s top baseball players on mission after missing title run
There were moments last year when Palo Verde baseball coach Dustin Romero looked at his lineup and thought: “It’d be really nice to have Brady right here.”
Palo Verde lost standout catcher Brady Dallimore last April with a left meniscus injury and had to navigate the second half of its season without the TCU commit.
It took a team effort to fill the void, but Palo Verde pulled through and won the Class 5A state title. The Panthers’ title defense shouldn’t be as challenging this season with their power-hitting backstop back.
Dallimore hasn’t missed a beat since returning, even after being cleared just before the season started after suffering a hand injury in December. He leads the Panthers at the plate, hitting .507 with 23 RBIs, 37 hits, 13 doubles and four home runs.
“I just really had to find myself, who I was without baseball. I had to find myself as a man and why I play the game,” the senior said. “It really gave me a good perspective for this season, just to have fun and love my teammates and be the best teammate possible.”
Palo Verde (18-7, 7-3) is in a tight three-way battle atop the 5A Mountain League behind Faith Lutheran and Basic. There are two weeks left in the regular season, and the Panthers will be in the hunt to defend their state title with Dallimore healthy for a postseason run.
“We could have just rolled over and stopped playing at our best without him,” Palo Verde first baseman and Grand Canyon commit Tanner Johns said. “But even when he was hurt, he was still a leader off the field, still helping us out any way he could while dealing with injury. It was resilient of him to do something like that. We grew as a team.”
Getting back
Dallimore tore his meniscus on April 1, 2024, and went in for surgery April 16. Palo Verde quickly had to respond, and the Panthers did, emerging out of a wide-open 5A with the Southern Region and state titles.
“We missed him quite a bit, but it turned into a joke at the very end where we got to regionals, we get to state and some of the jokes postgame meeting, it’s like, ‘We don’t need Brady to win,’” Romero said with a grin.
Romero and Dallimore can laugh about it now, but things were much tougher immediately after his injury.
“It was hard,” Dallimore said. “I love being around my team and brothers, but it was hard knowing that they were competing, and I wasn’t with them on the field, just giving them my best.”
With a large knee brace on his left knee, Dallimore said he tried to be the best teammate he could in the dugout. Romero said Dallimore became like a coach and remembers reminding him to not be “the first on the dogpile” while celebrating their title wins.
“He just goes, goes, goes and wants to be the best every day,” Romero said. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell a player to ever calm down, but that’s Brady. He goes 100 percent all the time, and he’s definitely the example we want to see.”
After a nearly six-month recovery process, Dallimore was back. Then he broke his hand Dec. 31 while training on his own. He got cleared a week before the season started at the end of February.
Romero said he doesn’t see a difference in how Dallimore plays, but notices he smiles a lot more.
“I have a lot of expectations that I put on myself and other people have, so I really put a lot of pressure on myself,” Dallimore said. “When I got injured, I realized I’m not playing for myself. It gave me a new perspective. … I’m playing for something bigger than just myself.”
‘The guy to do it’
Dallimore is adding to an impressive family baseball legacy. His father, Brian Dallimore, played in the big leagues with the San Francisco Giants. Brady’s grandfather, Fred Dallimore, was UNLV’s coach for 23 seasons and won 794 games leading the Rebels.
“My dad has been with me through everything,” Dallimore said. “He’s been my coach ever since I was a little kid. He played professional baseball, and my grandpa coached at UNLV. And just the wisdom and experience they brought on to me, it’s really not just even the baseball player, but the man I am today.”
During a college recruiting process that saw schools reach out to him the summer after his freshman year, Dallimore appeared set to follow in his father’s footsteps at Stanford. But he promised TCU he would pay the school one more visit before he committed.
“I went to go visit there, and I just felt like my heart wanted to go there,” Dallimore said. “I loved the coaches. I loved everything about it. … My heart just felt this desire that I wanted to play there. I want to play for these coaches.”
The 5A Southern Region playoffs begin May 5. Ethan Clauss, a shortstop and LSU commit, said the experience of winning the title last year has the Panthers confident they can do it again with Dallimore back.
“He’s a character in the dugout. He keeps it loose but keeps it serious when it’s needed,” Clauss said. “I want nothing more than him to win a state ring with us because he deserves it more than anybody on this team. He’s the guy to do it, to lead us to another ring.”
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
