Nicely, a minimum of there’s one New York baseball workforce in motion this week, when the Yankees and Mets have been supposed to start out gathering in Florida.
“We began working towards on Jan. 17,” Frank Catalanotto instructed Submit Sports activities+ of his Hofstra membership. “We’ve got our first recreation on Feb. 25 at Houston Baptist.”
The Lengthy Island native, who wrapped up a powerful 14-year main league enjoying profession with the 2010 Mets, shall be making his Division I teaching debut — as will his Houston Baptist counterpart, temporary former Yankee Lance Berkman — with the Delight. He captured the faculty baseball world’s consideration together with his stellar job main Division II New York Tech, taking that program to the NCAA event in 2019 (its first event bid since 1983) and posting a 9-5 report in 2020 earlier than COVID shut down the remainder of the season. Catalanotto spent final 12 months giving hitting classes at Baseball Heaven in Yaphank earlier than the Hofstra alternative arose.
“Hofstra baseball hasn’t been good shortly,” Catalanotto mentioned (Hofstra completed 17-22 final season, its eighth straight 12 months with no successful report). “The very first thing is to get into the event and win the [Colonial Athletic Association]. That’s positively one thing that’s doable. We need to make children within the Northeast assume, ‘OK, Hofstra is the place to go to play.’” All three of his coaches — Jimmy Goelz, Chris Rojas and Matt Wessinger — performed professionally.
