LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A dream nearly every child has is to one day make it big in a professional sport. One Louisville native is proving anything is possible.

For Austin Warner, the road to pro wasn’t always as quick as his fastball. Warner went undrafted after college and pitched two seasons in the Independent Leagues before being signed by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2017.

“When I got to the Cardinals, I kind of moved up the ranks pretty quickly. In 2018, my first full season with the Cardinals I finished in Triple-A, so I had a lot of fun with them. In 2018 we won the national championship here and then in 2019 we started off slow and got hot towards the end kind of like what we're doing now, getting hot towards the middle so just trying to keep winning ball games,” Warner said.

Warner, a left-handed pitcher, was all-district, 7th region all-star and first team all-catholic league at Trinity High School.

Upon graduation, Warner committed to continue his baseball career at Bellarmine University, where he pitched from 2013 to 2016, was named first-team all-GLVC his junior season and even led the team with 74 strikeouts.

Warner finally returned home, but he played for the opposing team – becoming the first Louisville native to play professionally at Louisville Slugger Field since RHP Chris Smith with Syracuse in 2018.

“Just throwing strikes, I've been throwing strikes pretty well. I've been commanding all four of my pitches, especially the off speed curveballs and sliders have been good for me, getting strikeouts with them. When I'm throwing those two pitches well, that's when I'm getting the strikeouts like I did with four in three innings, so we'll take it,” Warner said.

Warner's talent on the mound is inspiring others in his hometown to follow in his footsteps.

“A group of kids that I know, whether I know them well and have given lessons to them a lot or just recognize their face from the facility," he said. "Because of that, I know there's probably a lot of kids that look up to me and the lessons definitely helped getting to do the one on one sessions with them and getting to know them.”

What's next for Warner? It's just a waiting game until he gets the biggest call of his life.

“That's been the goal ever since I started playing baseball, basically was to get to that level. So we're close, some days it feels like it's tomorrow that I'll get the call, some days it may be next year or even further down the road but I feel like it's coming sooner or later at this point,” Warner said.

Austin Warner pitched three innings and had four strikeouts for the Memphis Redbirds in the doubleheader against the Louisville Bats on July 21.