PORTAGE, MI - In one moment, the game Jordyn Muffley loved since childhood ceased to be a game and became a career.

Muffley, a Portage native and class of 2015 Portage Central graduate, was selected by the Tampa Bay Rays in the 24th round of June's 2017 MLB draft.

Picked No. 706 overall, the Rays' selection secured Muffley's lifelong goal of playing pro baseball and became the latest chapter in his quest to make a major league roster.

As a 6-foot-1, 195-pound senior catcher at Portage Central, Muffley knew he had the tools to play after graduation, but he wasn't content with the traditional four-year college route.

"In high school, I had looks early on from Division-I schools, but once everything started playing out and I got older, I realized that a lot of guys were going to D-I schools and not getting time until their junior year," he said.

Muffley decided on the junior college route and signed to play with Parkland College in Illinois, where he had the chance to learn from a former catcher in head coach Dave Garcia.

"Going to the JUCO school, the whole idea is to be drafted and play pro ball," Muffley said. "I knew I had to develop, and that's what I wanted to do rather than go to a four-year school and maybe not play my first two years and miss out on that development."

From Portage to Parkland

Muffley comes from a baseball family, and when he needed tips on anything from his swing to his defense, he'd turn to his father, Scott Muffley, a former coach at Three Rivers.

He left Portage Central as a three-time all-conference selection and was selected to play in Michigan's 2015 East-West High School All-Star game.

It didn't take long for Muffley to adapt to his new environment at Parkland, where he earned All-Regional MVP honors and led the Cobras to the junior college World Series.

"I knew my swing so well through my dad that when I got to college, it was really just making small tweaks here or there that really helped me," Muffley said. "It wasn't that much of a difference mentally from high school, but physically, I had to buy into these things that were going to pay off in the long run.

"The coaches are there to develop you, so everything is a grind, but the grind pays off. Whether it's Division-I or Major League Baseball, they're there to teach you and help you get to that next level."

Muffley embraced the rigors of junior college baseball, and he had a breakout sophomore season in which he posted a .411 batting average, with 12 home runs and 80 RBIs. His 70 runs scored ranked seventh nationally, and he was selected to the junior college All-American team before earning Male Athlete of the Year honors from Parkland.

Before enrolling at Parkland, Muffley's goal was to turn his two years with the Cobras into a Division-I scholarship or a shot at pro baseball.

When he signed a letter of intent to play for Central Michigan University, Muffley made that goal a reality.

Late change of plans

Muffley capped his final season at Parkland with a third place finish in the NJCAA World Series in early June.

He had heard little from scouts leading up to the June 12 MLB draft, so he was preparing for his future as a Chippewa. He picked a roommate and was ready to make a down payment on an apartment when he got a call that changed the trajectory of his career.

A member of the Tampa Bay Rays organization called Muffley to inform him that the club selected the catcher in the 24th round. At that moment, he knew he had to make one of the toughest decisions of his life: continue his academic and athletic careers at CMU, or forego his college eligibility and sign with the Rays.

"It was exciting, and I had to take a second to take it in," Muffley said of the call. "It's every boy's dream to play pro baseball, and once it settled in, I realized there was another step of my life coming, and I had to prepare for that."

Muffley decided to sign with the Rays and start his career with the organization's rookie-ball team, the Gulf Coast League Rays.

"It was a great feeling, just to see that a lot of the hard work paid off, but I realize that it doesn't stop there, and I have a lot more work ahead of me to make my final goal."

The Major League grind

Just as Parkland was more rigorous than Portage, the grind of a minor league baseball season is a level up from the junior college level.

Muffley arrives at the ballpark every morning in time to see the sunrise over the outfield fence, and that begins a long day in the team's 60-game schedule.

"The level of play isn't too much of an adjustment, but we have practice every morning at 8 a.m., then we play a game at noon every day," Muffley said. "That's a grind and it took a while to get used to getting to the ballpark at 6:45 a.m., but you don't get the same level of instruction anywhere but here.

"You put your work in everyday because putting it in down here is going to benefit your career so much, and it's something I have to do to make myself better every day."

Muffley went 1 for 2 at the plate in his minor league debut on June 28, and he has three hits and two RBIs through five games.

While he's learning plenty about what it takes to be a professional athlete, lessons at the minor-league level extend beyond baseball, and Muffley is starting to Spanish to better communicate with his teammates on the Rays' pitching staff.

"It's hasn't been crazy difficult to get to know the pitchers because I catch their bullpens and get a feel for them, but the language barrier is tough because there are a lot of people from Venezuela and the Dominican," Muffley said. "I've been learning a little Spanish down here, and it's getting easier to relate with them and talk to them. Catching bullpen everyday has really helped me, and that used to be something we'd dread in high school and college, but it's great here because you get to know these guys a little more."

Beating the odds

From high school to the minor leagues, the path to the pro baseball is filled with hurdles and pitfalls.

Only 5.6 percent of high school standouts play in college, and less than 10 percent of NCAA athletes are selected in the Major League Baseball draft. The odds of going from a draft pick to major league roster are similarly slim, as only 10 percent of minor leaguers make it to the show.

Muffley never worried about those numbers as he worked his way through the high school and college ranks, and he's not worried about them now that he is playing professionally.

Instead of reflecting on how unlikely it was for him to make it to the Minor Leagues or how difficult it will be to reach the majors, the 20-year-old catcher sees each stop as a stepping stone on a path to the show.

"The way that I always looked at it was that every single thing was a stepping stone to play Major League Baseball," Muffley said. "Junior college was a stepping stone, Central Michigan would've been another stone, and now I'm here trying to meet that final goal of playing in the majors."