Josh Shelly was a little late to the Baton Rouge Rougarou this season.
The third-year player, who was the League MVP in 2023 and an All-Star in 2024, had some unfinished business up in Idaho, where he and his Tennessee Wesleyan teammates were vying for a NAIA World Series title.
The Bulldogs ultimately finished fifth in the tournament, then Shelly headed back to Tennessee, then back home to Houma, where he was supposed to undergo a tonsillectomy that has now been postponed until August. He finally joined the Rougarou on June 11, promptly going 3-for-3 with three RBIs.
Shelly, who batted .406 for the Bulldogs with 70 RBIs, is now hitting .469 for the Rougarou, leading the Texas Collegiate League. He and teammates Blaise Priester, Zeb Ruddell and Ben Robichaux are tied with 16 RBIs, second in the league.
But more importantly to Shelly, the Rougarou are firmly atop the league standings with a record of 15-2 – best in the league – and currently riding a 12-game winning streak. It’s the best start in Rougarou franchise history.
“It’s a testament to (general manager) Casey McKenzie and (team owner) Ronnie Rantz that they wanted the Rougarou to be better this summer, so they took a little different approach to it,” said Shelly, who is playing for his third head coach, Stephen Klein, in three summers. “I think it’s really working.”
“He’s a relentless hitter,” Klein said.
Shelly said the World Series run with the Bulldogs definitely had him on the right track.
“That was honestly probably the most fun baseball I’ve ever played,” Shelly said. “It was different scenery, just being a part of games that really mattered. It was just fun to be out there playing with those guys.”
Not that he doesn’t enjoy playing with the Rougarou, even now that he’s considered the “old” veteran.
“It’s a little bit of carrying over and a little bit of being around the Rougarou the last three summers,” he said. “I’m just having fun with it. I’m one of the oldest. It’s a different atmosphere. It’s just fun, especially coming from Tennessee where we had a winning culture, bouncing into another winning culture that Coach Klein set up just makes it easy. I just showed up and started playing. I know he’s young but he definitely knows baseball and he knows what it takes to win. We’re just playing the game the right way right now.”
Shelly said it helps to have other veteran players around him.
“We have five or six from last year and a few others who have played in the league before,” Shelly said. “Just knowing the dynamic, day in and day out, playing every day definitely helps.”
This wasn’t always the case for Shelly, who came out of Vandebilt Catholic High School in Houma at 17, small, scrawny and recovering from a knee injury. He had no college offers, his playing days seemed done.
“I just went to LSU for school,” he said.
Due to Covid and other factors, that didn’t work out well either. So he went to work. Every day. Then, one day he picked up a baseball for Joe Teuton, the legendary baseball guru in the Houma area who has led the Southland Hogs for decades. He had Shelly come out to help one of his summer teams.
“He wasn’t good coming out of high school,” Teuton said. “He played his senior year with a bad knee and he was a young 17-year-old. He was helping one of my teams and I said, ‘Bro. Why don’t you come back and play?’ He came back his first year out of college and played summer baseball with me and he went 10-0 on the mound. He was my best pitcher.”
The following summer, he returned to the Southland Hogs wanting to be a position player. Now two years out of high school, 19 years old, four inches taller, and with a little more weight on his frame, Shelly was a shortstop and the best pitcher again.
With Teuton's help, Shelly signed with Jones Community College. That eventually led him to Coastal Alabama, which dropped baseball after Shelly’s only season there, then to Lurleen B. Wallce Community College, then Tennessee Wesleyan and the Rougarou.
“I’ve been all over the place,” Shelly said.
But he’s made his mark. The goal this summer is to keep improving. He wants to win the MVP award again and, he hopes, get a shot at a professional baseball career.
“I’ve matured a lot,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot, just the mental side of it.”
By Lori Lyons, Rougarou Writer
Photo by Carla Walker