Dr. Stan “The Stats Man” is currently on vacation. To keep the blog current I will be submitting postings written by students in my Baseball and Statistics course at Quinnipiac University. The posting below was submitted by Julianne Giordano, a Post Undergraduate student, and is about a special sports day in the life of her father. In my own life there was that one special day when I was playing basketball in high school and wound up winning the game by stealing the ball and then scoring the winning layup as time expired. The team surrounded me and it was the biggest sports moment of my life. If you have a special sports moment you would like to share with my readers please email me and I would be happy to publish it. Here is Julianne’s posting about her father’s special day .
I have never met another human being who loves baseball as much as my father. His incomprehensible knowledge of every team, player and ball game remains unmatched and he could name any statistic thrown at him without thinking twice. Seeing as the past fifty years of his life has been dedicated to America’s pastime, I was curious as to what was his top most memorable moment regarding baseball. Here’s what he had to say:
“So as a skinny, 150-pound Sophomore Pitcher at Hamden High School in 1980, I didn’t have much hope of playing Varsity Baseball as we had 3 senior pitchers on the team already. The only advantage I had (although I did not consider it an advantage at the time) was that my brother had played at the school 3 years prior and was the star pitcher on a team that won a state championship in 1977. His success actually helped me get noticed in the pre-season. Anyway, our first game was moved from the campus field to an off- site field because our campus field was under water. Since the JV’s could not practice, the coach took many JV players, including myself, to the game to show us what a Varsity game was like. The coach had very little patience for pitchers and our “big 3” all had terrible games. Yes, he used all of them that game. In the 5th inning we were losing 16-2 so the coach looks down the bench and says, “Giordano, go warm up”. I thought he was kidding until he yelled “NOW”. I got ready and sure enough, he lets me pitch. I go out there in a disgusting, yellow zip up JV uniform with the other team laughing at us and proceed to pitch 2 scoreless innings with 3 strikeouts. After the game the coach is so upset with the upper class pitchers that as “punishment” for them performing so terribly he decided to let me start the next game. Well, we lost that game 3-1 but I pitched very well. I wasn’t sure whether I would get any consistent time after that but I was wrong. I ended up winning my next 8 starts and led us to the State Tournament. I was selected by the coaches to the All-League Team in 1980 and was the only sophomore to receive that honor. All in all, it was a great season for me and certainly my most memorable experiences as a ball player growing up.”
It is interesting to think what would have happened if the home field wasn’t flooded or if the other pitchers on the team were having great games. This is just one of the many stories I’ve heard from my father regarding baseball and each one is as entertaining as the last. He loves talking baseball with just about anyone he can find, so I was considering introducing him to my baseball statistics professor. That is, until I found out Professor Rothman is a Yankees fan (my father is a die-hard Mets fan).
By Julianne Giordano