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Troy — Blake Ilitch is no stranger to the family business. No, not pizza, but another thing Detroiters and Michiganders hold synonymous with the Ilitch name: Baseball. A star pitcher for Birmingham Brother Rice who is set to play his college ball at Ole Miss, Ilitch is one of the top prep prospects in the state. He threw a no-hitter earlier this season, and in a recent outing against Detroit Catholic Central, Ilitch looked the part of a dominant pitcher. He threw five innings, giving up two hits, one run and striking out seven as his team won via mercy rule after a fifth-inning grand slam. While he owns one of the best arms in the state, a coveted prospect and the scion of one of Michigan’s most prominent families, Ilitch himself, nor his father in the stands, offer little to indicate he’s anything more than a high school senior who just happens to throw in the mid-90s. And above all the expectations, external pressures and internal desires, Ilitch wants to make sure he does one thing in his last year playing high school baseball: Enjoy himself. “The drive kind of starts with Little League and all that; I just kind of had fun out there,” Ilitch said. “And that’s still something I thought, I keep in my mind until this day playing in high school: Just have fun and be a kid. Because that’s kind of when I’m at my best and I have the most confidence and the most feel out there.” That Ilitch is such a promising prospect is not a surprise. His two older brothers, Christian and Patrick, both played college baseball. And of course his grandfather, Mike Ilitch — who had a brief minor league career in the 1950s — owned the Detroit Tigers from 1992 until his death in 2017. The organization is now run by Christopher Ilitch, uncle to the current Brother Rice star. And though his father, Atanas, is not entrenched as deeply with the Tigers as some of his other relatives, Blake Ilitch had an early inclination to pick up a mitt and bat. “It kind of goes all the way back to my grandpa and how he played,” Ilitch said. “And I kind of grew up around it my whole life with the Tigers games and that sort of thing.” But early in Ilitch’s life, it wasn’t a certainty that he could be this good of a pitcher or player, until he hit high school. By virtue of some physical growth and settling into his mechanics, Ilitch saw a big bump in his velocity — adding around 10 mph — and the overall difficulty hitters had in hitting him. During his freshman year of high school, Ilitch attended IMG Academy in Florida during the fall and then went a homeschool route in the spring semester. That enabled him to take on an almost pro-like training regimen, spending four to five hours a day lifting, throwing, working out and training at 2SP Sports Performance in Madison Heights. And when he enrolled at Brother Rice prior to the 2021-22 school year and before his sophomore season, he started working with staff pitching coach Mike Steele. “I ended up coming to Brother Rice and that's where Mike Steele helped me a lot over the course of the sophomore year,” Ilitch said. All the work has paid off, and it doesn’t hurt that Ilitch looms large on the mound with a 6-foot-4, 210-pound frame. He sits in the low-to-mid-90s with his four-seam fastball, which can get up to around 94 mph. And his pair of breaking pitches — a big curveball and a hard, darting slider — can be thrown consistently for strikes, giving Ilitch a pitch arsenal that dominates against most high school lineups. It would be easy, too, for Ilitch to sit back and rely on his velocity and control with the fastball to beat hitters. Instead, he’s constantly working on improving his off-speed pitches, sequencing and how he can use his physical and mental talents to beat batters. Ilitch isn’t one to hold back, longtime Brother Rice coach Bob Riker said, constantly wanting to put the work in to get a bit better here and there, day by day. The challenge for Riker, at times, is getting Ilitch to downshift for rest and recovery. The physical talents with Ilitch are undeniable, and having seen how hard a worker he is, Riker mostly wants to make sure his ace pitcher doesn’t burn himself out. “He's never content with where he's at,” Riker said. “He's always working to get better and improve, which is really kind of cool because at this age and at this level and where he's at talent-wise, he can just kind of sit back and be content, but he's not like that at all.” Flaming out doesn’t seem like a concern for Ilitch, who is reveling in enjoying his final season of high school baseball. He’s chasing championships with this group, but it’s also likely the last time his baseball career can be so carefree, as the demands of high-level college and potentially professional baseball inch closer to being like a job. Shortly after outdueling the Catholic Central lineup, between games of a Wednesday doubleheader, Ilitch is just like any other high schooler, picking out his family in the crowd, saying hello to various relatives that came to see him play and getting some food. Then he saunters into the bleachers to find his dad. Atanas was one of the first people to arrive at the ballpark, picking out a second-row seat directly behind home plate about 30 minutes before the first pitch. Wearing black Asics, jeans, a gray athleisure hoodie and Tigers trucker cap, there’s little to indicate he’s anything but another baseball dad in the crowd. He greets other parents as they get seated. Throughout the game, he tracks his son's performances in an orange binder full of loose-leaf lined paper, dutifully noting the pitches and situations with a blue Pilot G2 pen as he watches the game from behind a pair of reflective sunglasses. As soon as Ilitch approaches his father, the two are quickly engrossed in a conversation about his performance. Leaning across the first row of seats, Ilitch talks through various sequences, mimicking with his hands how a certain pitch moved and explaining what he feels he executed and needs to improve. Atanas references his notes, pointing out certain things he picked up and asking about other spots in the game. “He takes time to celebrate and look at the payoff for his hard work. But he also knows, hey, there's still more hard work ahead and there's always room for improvement,” Riker said. On this day, there’s mixed results to discuss. Ilitch won and gave up just one run and a pair of hits, but one hit was a home run to the leadoff hitter of the game. He also walked four batters but navigated out of those jams with several of his seven strikeouts. After striking out a pair of batters with a runner on base, Ilitch, normally quite stoic on the mound, showed some fire, too. “Come on!” he yelled, hopping off the mound and jogging to the dugout, clapping his hand on his black Rawlings mitt. The father-son pitching debrief lasts a few minutes, the first but not last bit of performance analysis for Ilitch after his start. There’s plenty of recovery for his body and studying to come from his outing, but for now, he switches gears and becomes a spectator, enjoying his solid showing and getting to cheer on his teammates. Because now, at the tail end of his high school baseball career, on the precipice of being the next Ilitch to excel on a college or pro diamond, there’s no reason not to enjoy this moment, too. “You're just with all your friends, your close friends from school, and you're just out there having fun,” Ilitch said. “That's the best part about it. Everything's fun and you don't really have to think. You just play.” Andrew Graham is a freelance writer. This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Brother Rice star Blake Ilitch reveling in final season, following family legacy