The Michael Burrows Story, which has gone national in recent days, touches all the notes that touch us all: Small town kid. Against the odds. Overcomes adversity. And then ends up at Yankee Stadium, striking out Aaron Judge, earning his first Major League victory.

Even your humble narrator here couldn’t screw up telling THAT story.

But there’s more to this, more because when one of us makes it, we all share the joy. And since Burrows’ family, friends and most of his old coaches are of local origin, the whiff of Judge’s bat ran like a current all the way back to Waterford, where it began.

There are times when, because we’re tucked away in a corner of a small state, that we’re told we don’t matter. One must make the grand stage to be grand. It’s like the line from Billy Joel's song: "They sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say, 'man, what are YOU doing here?'"

But then things like Michael Burrows on the mound at Yankee Stadium happen. And then you realize this story began here. Of us, for us, by us. A happy reminder that, yes, what we do matters here.

“I was thinking as I was watching it,” Waterford High baseball coach Art Peluso was saying the other day, “how many people around here have something in common with Aaron Judge. They struck out against Mike Burrows.”

Peluso and Burrows teamed to win the 2017 state title, the 10th championship at the time for the state’s most successful program. They’ve maintained a close relationship since, all the way to Burrows’ rehabilitation process after Tommy John surgery. Burrows needed to find someplace local where he could throw at least 120 feet. Peluso opened the Francis X. Sweeney Fieldhouse early for Burrows’ morning workouts.

“It’s really something to watch what a Major League rehab looks like,” Peluso said. “He worked his butt off for this. It’s hard to put into words how happy we all are for him.”

Burrows struck out 15 in the state championship game for the Lancers, despite navigating a fussbudget of a home plate umpire named Joe Bellino, who made him remove the crucifix that hung on a chain around his neck, the same chain with which Burrows pitched 10 other games during the season.

One inning later, Bellino interrupted the flow again by informing Burrows that he “wasn’t square to home plate” before delivering a pitch. Bellino, making himself a nuisance, summoned Peluso for a meeting. Peluso returned to the dugout muttering most of George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television. Burrows? He merely stood and watched, awaiting the chance for all the adults to clam up so he could pitch, looking about as concerned as one of those people in a Corona commercial.

The idea that he had a chance to be special hasn’t been breaking news to any of us for quite some time. But when the world gets to see one of our Whiz Kids, well, we all revel.

“I had to go to an entirely new cable system to watch the game,” Waterford Babe Ruth President Lucas Beaney said, alluding to how finding the YES Network has a bit of a Where’s Waldo feel sometimes. “We only had Mike for one year (when he was 14), but his presence in the program was huge. He stayed a Waterford kid in high school. He didn’t go to IMG Academy or anything like that. Now look at him.”

Indeed. Burrows could have gone elsewhere. But he stayed here. True to his family and friends. Sure, spotlights are bigger and brighter in other outposts. But there's something magical and magnetic about this corner of the world sometimes. We are a loyal lot. Which is why we should all rejoice in this.

It’s becoming a more familiar story throughout baseball how little ol’ southeastern Connecticut has become a factory for professional baseball players. But until Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, none had ever made the majors from Waterford — Baseball Town, USA — until Michael Burrows.

Beautiful.

And who knows how high this rocket flies? Burrows and Paul Skenes in the same rotation? Can’t wait for that one.

Meantime, we wave the flag for our corner of the world — and Mike Burrows’ immense contribution to it.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro