“My mom always said I came out of the womb with a bat in my hand,” he said with a laugh.
His mother, Hannah, agreed: “He loved baseball since he could walk.”
When she was potty-training him, the toilet seat resembled a baseball.
“We carried that thing around everywhere,” she said.
His father, Ry, made sure Kade, a natural right-hander, learned to swing the bat left-handed.
Bowling, 18, a senior third baseman on the Badin High School baseball team, was introduced to organized baseball while playing T-ball in the West Side Little League program.
That introduction led to an addiction.
He tried basketball and football, but Bowling was always draw back to the diamond.
“They never stuck,” he said of the other sports. “Never the same happiness.”
Badin’s athletic program is glad he chose baseball.
Brion Treadway, in his 14th season as Badin head coach, said Bowling shows up every day at 6 a.m. for batting practice. He leads by example and his teammates follow.
“He’s the type of guy every coach needs,” Treadway said. “I know if I need something done, I can ask Kade and it gets done.”
He said Badin has been blessed recently to have “a Kade Bowling” type player every season and that leadership trickles down to the underclassmen.
Last season, when the Rams came within one out of winning the Division II state championship, Bowling hit .293 with 29 RBI and six stolen bases.
That 3-2 championship game loss to West Branch High School, when the Rams surrendered three runs in the top of the seventh inning, still stings one year later, Bowling said.
The Rams (27-7) had shut out six straight tournament opponents to reach their first state final since 2016. Badin outscored its postseason opponents 57-0 all the way up until the final inning of the state final.
“We all took that loss hard,” he said. “But you learn more in a loss than a win.”
It was Badin’s third trip to the state tournament in the past four seasons. The Rams were seeking their third championship in program history. Badin won state titles in 1991 and 1996.
Now, 29 years after the school’s last state title, Bowling’s dream senior season ends with another state championship.
“That’s the goal,” he said.
His father, a 2003 Badin graduate, played high school and college baseball. He said every father-son conversation about Badin baseball includes talking about the 2025 state tournament and “getting back there and finishing the job.“
Baseball is a sport filled with failures, where Major League Baseball players are elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame for collecting three hits every 10 at-bats.
Ry tries to remember that when he watches his son play baseball.
“You want the best for your kid, to be successful, hit a home run every time,” he said. “But baseball is a life lesson. You have to let them be successful and have failures.”
Bowling’s favorite MLB player is Bryce Harper, a left-handed first baseman and right fielder for the Philadelphia Phillies. Bowling and Harper hit left-handed.
Harper has a sweet swing and a love of the game.
“He’s passionate,” Bowling said. “I try to be like him.”
Bowling has committed to play college baseball at Southern Wesleyan University, a Division II school in Central, South Carolina.
He feel in love with the university during his visit.
“It felt like home to me,” he said.
Kade’s brother, Brandt, a junior, plays varsity volleyball at Badin.
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