Blakeney’s Way

Blakeney James Kearbey

August 19, 1997 – April 10, 2022

Blakeney’s Way is a tribute to Blakeney Kearbey — a gifted pitcher, fierce competitor, man of faith, and unforgettable soul whose life left a mark far beyond the baseball field.

All proceeds from Blakeney’s Way will be donated to the Blakeney’s Way Foundation.

Blakeney was among the top pitchers to come out of Southeast Missouri. At 6’5” and 225 pounds, he was a hard-throwing pitcher with effortless mechanics, a resilient right arm, and a competitive fire that made him impossible to ignore. When Blakeney was on the mound, his team’s chances of winning rose. He gravitated toward the underdog, and when he felt like the underdog himself, his best always seemed to appear.

In the summer of 2016, while playing with the Wayne County Lumberjacks, Blakeney pitched 14 innings in two days to help lead his team to represent the State of Missouri in the regional tournament in Holyoke, Colorado. The Lumberjacks won the regional championship and earned the opportunity to compete in the World Series in Ephrata, Washington against some of the best teams in the country. Blakeney was selected as ESPN Athlete of the Week for his outstanding postseason performance.

In the summer of 2018, Blakeney was invited to pitch for the Palm Springs Power baseball team in Palm Springs, California, one of the premier summer baseball destinations for the nation’s top college players. After earning his third win in three appearances, a reporter asked how he stayed so calm and relaxed against elite hitters.

Blakeney answered with the kind of confidence that defined him: every hitter believed the pitcher was more afraid of him than he was of the pitcher — and that was the hitter’s first mistake. He credited God for giving him a strong body, a resilient arm, a short memory, and bulletproof confidence.

Blakeney was a Major League draft prospect heading into his junior season before the COVID pandemic canceled the 2020 college season. Baseball was taken away too soon. So was Blakeney.

On April 10, 2022, Blakeney’s life ended, but his legacy did not. His family created the Blakeney’s Way Foundation on April 14, 2022, to honor the way he lived — with faith, courage, discipline, confidence, and a belief that impossible was never the end of the story.

This song is for Blakeney.

For his family.

For the legacy he left behind.

For the way he lived.

For Blakeney’s Way.