Good morning!
On March 27 at Towson University near Baltimore, the UMass baseball team played in high winds and 44-degree temps. Three days later in Albany, the official scorer used one word to describe the conditions: Cold.
It’s no coincidence the top two teams in the Atlantic-10, Davidson and VCU, hail from warm weather climates and the bottom two, St. Bonaventure and UMass, play in the coldest.
Usually UMass gets a taste of Florida sunshine to gird themselves, but this season the furthest south the Minutemen marched was to North Carolina where the temperature for the first pitch against Penn State was 38 degrees.
Most talented ballplayers from the northeast migrate south. Indeed, nobody expects UMass coach Matt Reynolds to field a championship team with a schedule that starts in early March and with one-and-a-half scholarships to dole out.
The last time UMass fielded a winning team was in 2009 when it was 27-26, and the program’s been neglected. The last capital improvement was two decades ago when it put up a new scoreboard, but otherwise the bleachers are rickety and the press box is a dark hole.
Yet for many alumni, baseball is as important as any sport. It’s been around since 1877 and former AD John McCutcheon nearly got chased into the campus pond when he floated the idea of dropping it.
Major Leaguers Jeff Reardon, Mike Flanagan and Gary DiSarcina all played in Amherst. Ron Villone transferred from Illinois to play football for Jim Reid and wound up pitching his way into the majors for 15 seasons.
The program’s needed only four coaches in 75 years, and the first three retired with winning records. Earl Lorden (187-146-3) arrived after he coached Turners Falls High School to the 1942 state championship. Orange native Dick Bergquist (392-321-5) took UMass to its only College World Series, and iron man Mike Stone (697-695-3) coached the Minutemen for three decades and won eight regular season titles.
Reynolds is a South Boston native who coached three seasons at Washington (Md.) College. This year he coached the Minutemen to its first 22-win season in a decade.
Reynolds’ $75,000 salary is a bargain compared to the $2 million it paid deposed grid coach Walt Bell to go 2-26, and the $3.67 million it paid long-gone hoops coach Matt McCall to go 60-81.
By the time the weather finally gets nice in Amherst, the baseball season’s over. The last regular season home game was May 17 against Quinnipiac on a warm and delightful afternoon.
Earl Lorden Field (dedicated in 1971) was freshly mowed, the lines were chalked, and a 10-foot high column of arbor vita beyond the outfield fence provided arboreal beauty.
I chatted with Sunderland’s John Zewski and Greenfield’s Steve Gunn and Stan Jaskolka behind home plate. Jaskolka is from Omaha, the home of the College World Series. “It was nothing back then,” he said. “I used to get on my bike and ride down and watch them play.”
The athletic department needs to use some of those millions it spends on other sports to build a grandstand in right field for fans who don’t like staring through the chain link fence. When that’s done, buy earplugs for fans who can’t tolerate loud music.
The Minutemen beat the Bobcats, 4-3, in 10 innings and among 80 fans. “These games move right along,” said Gunn. “They don’t step out and play with their gloves.”
The winning run scored on catcher Mike Gervasi’s single to right center that plated Kevin Skagerlind. Gervasi is a 6-foot-3 catcher from Rockport, and Skagerlind is a sophomore from Holden who played at Wachusett Regional High School.
Shortstop Cole Hebble was the team’s MVP this season. A Swarthmore transfer and Miami native, Hebble batted .354 and led the team in runs scored, hits and doubles and grounded into three double plays in 195 at-bats. In the field he made five errors from 213 chances.
Outfielder Will MacLean of Exeter, N.H., batted .321 and teamed up with second baseman Drew DeMartino of Pittsfield to hit 14 home runs and drive in 74.
The Minutemen finished in the top third in Division-1 fielding percentage (.972), ahead of BC, Northeastern, Harvard, URI and UMass-Lowell.
The problem wasn’t hitting or defense, it was pitching. Where’s Doug Welenc when you need him? The Greenfield native was the Yankee Conference Pitcher of the Year in 1979. He still holds the school record for complete games (24) and remains in the top ten in ERA, strikeouts, wins and innings pitched.
No one this year matched Welenc’s ability to send batters back from whence they came. The staff was Bottom 20 in ERA (7.97) and hits allowed per nine innings (12.5). It gave up 28 runs against Davidson and UConn, and 26 against VCU.
It did however gain a measure of payback by beating St. Bonaventure, 23-7, and winning a nailbiter against GW, 17-16.
It all added up to an 8-16 record in the A-10 and 22-26 overall. Let the word go forth: Wait till next year.
In March, I stayed for two nights in Gainesville with Crosby and Deborah Hunt. They put me up in their “Baseball Room” bedecked with framed photos and bookcases filled with treatises about the grand old game.
Crosby had tickets for a Friday night game between the University of Florida and Siena College in the Gators’ new $30 million ballpark, aptly named Florida Ballpark. Rain postponed the contest until the following afternoon under a blue sky and ensuing cold front that plunged temps into the frosty 50s. Fans who couldn’t attend listened on AM/FM stations in Gainesville and Jacksonville.
Student volunteers handed out programs, and the lineups were posted behind home plate. Trophy cases boasted of a legacy that included the 2017 national championship and the names of the 77 Gators to date who’ve played in the big leagues.
Ballpark menu offerings included fried key lime pie and Cubano sandwiches, but I opted for the standard $12 cheeseburger with homemade potato chips.
Our seats were three rows from the field near the Gators dugout. Behind us Florida’s mascots Albert and Alberta Gator bowed to young children and parents held signs that said “Fear the Chomp.”
Under the scoreboard beyond the outfield fence, fans were sprawled in large orange-and-blue Adirondack chairs.
Over 4,000 had braved the nosediving temps to watch the Gators clobber Siena 16-4. The long ball attack included three home runs, two triples and two doubles. Former Red Sox draft choice Jud Fabian had a home run, double, walk and three RBIs.
Fabian was the 40th overall pick in the 2021 draft and was slotted to make a $2 million signing bonus but he passed it up to play with his freshman kid brother Deric. The Red Sox like his bat which in two seasons and 105 games has produced 40 home runs and 97 RBIs.
The Gators will need to win this week’s SEC tournament to advance, because despite a 35-20 record they were only 15-15 in the conference, but don’t blame Hunt. “I went to six games and they won them all,” he said.
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SQUIBBERS: College grid analyst Bruce Feldman of The Athletic, to Rich Eisen on the inexact science of recruiting: “The average hit rate on a five-star player is 30 percent.” … Paul Finebaum counted Jimbo Fisher say “despicable” 15 times during last week’s tirade at Nick Saban. …. The current betting line for the Texas A&M at Alabama game on Oct. 8 is 16½ points. … Clint Frazier, the can’t-miss prospect who jokingly asked for Mickey Mantle’s No. 7 when he came to the Yankees, was released in November and and is batting .143 for the Cubs (3-for-21). … The Red Sox don’t broadcast the national anthem on the radio, but they have a sponsor for it nevertheless. Now that’s salesmanship. … Former Mets skipper Mickey Calloway is managing a Mexican League team near Monterey. His players include Pablo Sandoval, Bartolo Colon and Josh Reddick. … Yankee Stadium has become Tropicana Field North, replete with sirens and submarine dive alarms between pitches. “The PA system is running amok,” said John Sterling, who borrowed from Woody Allen: “And when it gets tired it will walk amok.” … WFAN’s Jerry Recco on Ime Udoka’s Celtics’ success since leaving the Nets: “Who let him go?” … A pair of AL East alums are tearing up the NL West. Mookie Betts leads the majors in runs (42) and Manny Machado leads in batting (.368). … The late Bill Veeck, former big league owner on baseball IQ: “In 20 years of moving around the ballpark, I’ve discovered that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats.”
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com