Middletown High School retires Kyle Schwarber's baseball jersey

Former Middletown High School standout Kyle Schwarber, a free-agent outfielder who played this past postseason and part of last season for the Boston Red Sox after a July trade from the Washington Nationals, became the first to have his Middies' baseball jersey - No. 12 - retired, during halftime of a Middletown boys' basketball game against Princeton that Schwarber attended Friday night at Wade E. Miller Arena.

From @middiesbaseball via Twitter:

The Middletown Athletic Hall of Fame announced last October that Schwarber will be among athletic inductees in March, for his achievements in football and baseball as a Middie in the Class of 2011.

Schwarber homered three times for the Red Sox during the 2021 postseason - one in the American League wild-card win against the New York Yankees, one in the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays and one in the ALCS against the Houston Astros.

Schwarber went along with the "Kyle from Waltham" joke, wearing a Waltham Hawks shirt that was sent to him after an ALCS game and declaring, "I guess my hometown is Waltham now. So, go Hawks."

"(Barstool Sports' Jared) Carrabis got (the shirt), sent it into the locker room," Schwarber said. "I think the first time I saw it (the nickname) was either him or MLB posted something. And everyone was asking me, 'What's Kyle from Waltham?' I'm like, 'What?' I’m like, 'I'm from Middletown, Ohio.'"

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This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Kyle Schwarber's Middletown High School baseball jersey is retired