The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Casparius will stay at UConn
Ben Casparius will play for his home state school after all.
Casparius, the Westport product and former Staples High star, has decided to return to UConn next season and play as a senior.
“They’re such good people over there, I’m so excited to play for Coach (Jim) Penders, Coach (Josh) MacDonald and Coach (Jeff) Hourigan.”
After an All-State career at Staples during which he set Connecticut high school baseball’s all-time hits record and was the 2017 Gatorade State Player of the Year, Casparius took his talents to the University of North Carolina. He played two seasons for the Tar Heels, but decided to transfer to UConn in the spring of 2019.
Casparius applied for a waiver to be able to play right away, rather than sit out a year per NCAA transfer rules. His case dragged on, however, and he didn’t learn until early March that his waiver had been denied. UConn’s season — and the entire NCAA spring sports season — ended a little over a week later.
Casparius was hoping to be selected in the 2020 MLB Draft a couple of weeks ago and was told by a few teams, including Detroit, Pittsburgh and San Diego, that he might get selected in the fourth or fifth round.
However, his name was never called in the draft, which lasted only five rounds instead of the usual 40. Casparius still considered signing with a team, but teams aren’t allowed to sign undrafted free agents for any more than $20,000.
“I feel like I’ve worked to hard to sign for $20,000,” Casparius said.
Indeed, in a normal year, Casparius may have been selected in the seventh, 10th, even 20th round and still commanded at least $100,000.
Professional baseball’s loss is UConn’s gain.
“I didn’t know at first what I would do, but it actually would have felt so weird not playing for (UConn),” he said. “I’m not disappointed one bit by the draft.”
And Casparius, a twoway player who will be mostly concentrating on pitching, will be returning to a team that should be loaded. Casparius was at the driving range with Orange’s Pat and Chris Winkel recently, and he noted that Chris Winkel intends to return as a fifthyear senior (something all senior athletes are allowed to do after the 2020 season was wiped out by COVID-19).
With the Winkel brothers, the Fedko brothers (Christian and Kyler), rising sophomore stud Reggie Crawford and others coming back, Casparius believes the Huskies are good enough to reach that elusive College World Series in Omaha next spring.