On a February afternoon at Tucker Field, over the crack of a bat and the thwack of a baseball hitting a glove, another sound – not typically heard at a baseball diamond – was playing on the loudspeakers: classical piano music.

The song’s performer and composer was redshirt junior first baseman Sam Martin. He was standing near home plate, huddled together with the rest of his teammates, most of whom were hearing his songs for the first time.

The day before that practice, head coach Gregg Ritchie came up to Martin to tell him he had listened to his songs and called them “enjoyable,” Martin said. Then he decided to play the classical melodies while the squad practiced.

“He just looked at me one day and said that he had found them,” Martin said. “It was surprising and it made for a fun practice, there was a lot of good banter.”

How Ritchie found the recordings remains a mystery to Martin and his teammates.

Everyone – including Martin – was caught off guard by his songs. Although Martin has two albums on 37 different music platforms, teammates said his piano playing abilities go largely unspoken on the team.

“It was pretty incredible,” junior utility player Dominic D’Alessandro said. “I wasn’t expecting it, sounded like a professional did it.”

Martin learned the piano when he was 12 years old by watching and mimicking YouTube videos. He had taken a few lessons when he was younger but found it boring, he said. It was not until a friend played the Super Mario Brothers theme song for Martin that he decided to relearn the instrument, and it became his passion from there on out.

“I went on YouTube, looked it up, watched people play and I figured out that I could teach myself how to play the piano just by watching,” he said.

Senior outfielder Mark Osis – who was roommates with Martin last spring – said it took a lot of prodding to get Martin to finally show off what he was playing while his headphones were hooked up to the keyboard in their room.

When Osis finally listened to his songs, he said he was blown away.

“Guys on this team, we tend to just be really good at one thing, which is baseball,” Osis said. “To have a guy who’s as good as he is at baseball also be really, really talented at something like piano, that’s really, really cool.”

When he was younger, Martin’s grandfather helped him learn the different shapes of chords and how to change them from major to minor keys, but did not teach him chord progressions, he said.

He later decided to take a music theory class his senior year of high school, where he began to understand what he was doing when composing a song, Martin said.

But music has never been prioritized over baseball, which he has been playing since he was 10 years old. Instead, he uses piano as an outlet and tries to play about an hour a day in the practice rooms at Phillips Hall wherever he can find the time between classes and the rigorous baseball schedule.

“I wanted to get away from any kind of stress that was school related or maybe the intensity of being recruited to play baseball,” he said. “I would go and I would play the piano, and it would be away for me to relax.”

This season, Martin has seen action in eight games, and connected for four hits in 13 at-bats. Assistant coach Dave Lorber said Martin is a “quiet grinder.”

“He always comes ready to work, always giving it his best regardless of anything,” Lorber said. “He’s a pleasure to be around.”

Lorber said he played Martin’s album to his wife, a professional musical theater performer, earlier this year. The sixth-year coach said she was “amazed” by his talent and wanted to buy Martin’s album.

This semester, Martin has gotten into writing film scores through a class he is taking for his music minor, where he is tasked with creating songs that will articulate the emotions being expressed in a soundless video clip.

“Being required to play, it’s still enjoyable,” Martin said. “It’s never become taxing in the same way as other schoolwork might be.”

The title of Martin’s latest album, “Tales of Adventure,” was inspired by his 9-year-old cousin, who said he felt like listening to the music was like “listening to an adventure.”

With the exception of a few past performances at retirement homes, Martin said he often does not play his music for others. Instead, he said he enjoys the process of composing alone.

Teammates said Martin’s humility extends to the dugout, where he is described as a team-first player.

“He’s a good attitude guy,” Osis said. “He’s the most excited person for you when you succeed, he’s there to pick you when you’re not succeeding. He’s everything you could want in a teammate and we’re all pretty happy to have him around.”