His commitment took a few twists and turns, but Lyon County senior John Bingham is headed to Mississippi State to play college baseball.
Bingham had originally committed to the University of Memphis, but reopened his recruitment and drew interest from several prestigious schools, including some from the Southeastern Conference. He ultimately chose Mississippi State over LSU and Florida State.
Bingham signed Wednesday alongside four Lyon teammates who will also play college ball. Eli Baker signed with Radford, Peyton Williams with Western Kentucky, Austin Spears with Northeast Mississippi and Korben Lucas with Frontier.
John is the third Bingham sibling to sign to play college ball. His brother Gunnar is currently on the baseball team at Murray State University. His sister Sophie is a former softball pitcher at Murray State.
Bingham, a hard-throwing right-hander, will be a pitcher-only at the next level.
At Lyon last season, he was 3-3 with three saves and a 4.56 earned run average. He struck out 43 in 35.1 innings.
Bingham also hit .318 with two home runs and 18 RBIs for a Lyon team that was state runner-up in the All A Classic and won the 5th District championship for the fifth straight year while going 22-7.
As a sophomore, Bingham was 4-4 with a 4.78 ERA and struck out 59 in 48.1 innings.
Meanwhile, Mississippi State went 40-23 last spring. The Diamond Dawgs played in the NCAA Tournament but fell in the Charlottesville Regional.
Mississippi State has a storied baseball program which has traditionally produced future Major League players. That list includes Will Clark, Rafael Palmeiro, Jeff Brantley, Jonathan Papelbon, Bobby Thigpen and Adam Frazier along with manager Buck Showalter
