No baseball at Hartford Public devastating to former coach

Joe Lombardo, after decades coaching baseball and basketball in Hartford and New Britain, spends a lot of his retirement time on area golf courses.

But when he got a text message from a former opponent, he felt the old sting a coach feels after a loss, only worse.

“I was devastated,” Lombardo said. “Emotionally, it was like a punch in the gut.”

Lombardo learned that Hartford Public, where he coached baseball from 1998-2018, leading the Owls to the CIAC Class LL tournament in his final season, was not going to field a varsity team in 2023.

“In the 20 years I was there, we never forfeited a game, never folded the program,” Lombardo said. “We did go from having 35 kids and a JV program to

13, 14 every year. We had to play iron-man baseball, but we fielded a program.

“It hurt because I took a lot of pride in keeping that program afloat. … I just want to cry right now.”

Bulkeley High, named for a baseball Hall of Famer and first National League President Morgan G Bulkeley, is undergoing renovation; its interested students played baseball this spring as part of a co-op with Bloomfield and Academy of Aerospace and Engineering.

Prince Tech (2-14, playing in the CTC) and Weaver (1-17, playing in the CRAL) were able to field teams, as did city-based magnet schools Hartford Magnet Trinity College Academy (7-13) and Sports and Medical Sciences Academy (8-12), and University/Classical Magnet (13-6), with about half its players from Hartford, is going to the state tournament for the fifth year in a row.

How can more kids in Hartford be encouraged to give baseball a try? How can ways be found to give them the best high school baseball opportunities and experience?

Questions to ponder as state tournaments get going.

“There are plenty of kids in Hartford who play baseball and have baseball talent,” said Joe Miller, who has coached University/Classical for seven years. “The problem is they are spread out to 10 or 15 different schools, between the CREC schools, going to other towns through school choice, several schools in Hartford.

“It really bothers me to hear people say, ‘Baseball is dead in Hartford,’ or ‘Kids aren’t playing baseball in Hartford anymore.’ If you took all the kids from Hartford who are playing baseball in this area, you’d have a pretty good team.”

Major League Baseball formed the RBI program (Reviving Baseball in Inner cities) in 1989, and it has helped increase participation by African-American kids. The Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation helped build the field at Annie Fisher School, where University/ Classical plays most of its home games.

Hartford has a large Spanish-speaking population, with many who have come from countries where baseball is immensely popular. Weaver reestablished its program in stages following its major renovation, playing as a varsity program in 2022 with aggressive efforts to reach out to students, and contributions of equipment from the Yard Goats, players from East Catholic High and teams around the country.

This season, coach Jon Greenfield and assistant Rich Rader, who speaks Spanish, were able to retain a roster of 17, athletic director Sterling Scanlon said.

“Our coaching staff has been really committed to our kids and embedded itself within our school community and really have connected with our teachers,” Scanlon said. “Most of our kids come from Spanish-speaking backgrounds and countries. To identify them and connect with them early, get them interested at an early stage of the [academic] year is kind of a key.

“It’s kids who have immigrated to the country who have more of a background in playing organized baseball than the kids who have been here, and that kind of speaks to inaccessibility of baseball in our city.”

Youth participation in baseball has been declining in numbers in many places for years, and the pandemic didn’t help. In Hartford programs such as the North End Little League and the Mayor Mike Peters League offer opportunities to play the game from a young age.

“A lot of it is changing the perception that baseball is not a game for them,” Miller said. “The perception is baseball is a game that is slow and boring, it’s a ‘white persons game’ — that’s something we hear.

“It’s sad for me, as a person who loves the history of baseball. It was a game that was played on city streets, major-league baseball players playing stick ball with the city kids. Making it more accessible too.

“Baseball is an expensive sport to get into. We try to tell kids, ‘You don’t have to buy a brand-new bat … we’ll give you a glove,’ but it’s not a game like basketball, where you can go out with very little equipment or expense. Making it cheaper, making it more accessible, changing the perception that it’s not inclusive all would help.”

Even as University/Classical has success, Miller, who teaches at the school, is often shorthanded. He said he once had to finish a game with eight players and offers freshmen a chance to get on the field.

“I’m always trying to put baseball in their ear,” he said. “It’s a year-round effort to look for kids who might have a little bit of baseball experience, to look for kids who are good athletes.

“I’ve picked kids out of phys-ed classes, I’ve picked kids out of fire drills, kids throwing snowballs outside the school. We really have to be creative in finding those kids.”

Miller is hoping two of his players, shortstop Anuj Patel, who is from Rocky Hill, and third baseman Jackson Marchetti, make the CRAL All-Star team.

Lombardo, 65, said he’d be willing to help, at least with suggestions, if Hartford Public tries to reestablish its varsity program next year. A co-op of HPHS, Weaver and Bulkeley could be part of a solution, though, as Scanlon pointed out, such a co-op would be too large to meet current CIAC requirements. Maybe a change of leagues from the CCC would help.

Whatever it takes, it just seems to me, and probably many others, that a school as large as Hartford Public, the second-oldest public high school in the nation that sent catcher Nick Koback directly to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1953, should have a baseball team.

“There are a lot of other things in this world that kids want to do,” Lombardo said. “And it’s not taking the direction of playing the game of baseball. I would say to kids, ‘Come out for baseball. Be in a program that’s disciplined.’

“Kids want that. They want the discipline, the structure of baseball. I couldn’t speak Spanish, and most of the kids who played for me were Spanish-speaking, but we survived.

“It was building relationships. It’s sad.”

UConn track and field stars

The UConn men’s track team won the Big East crown for the fifth year in a row, and the women won for the fourth time in a row. Now it’s on to the NCAA qualifiers in Jacksonville, Fla.

So far on the men’s side, javelin thrower Colin Winkler, a senior from Winsted, and sophomore long jumper Marc Morrison and senior hurdler Wellington Ventura have punched tickets to the NCAA championships.

Sunday short takes

UConn offensive lineman Christian Haynes was named a preseason All-American by Athlon Sports. Look for a monster year from him.

Berlin’s Matt Carasiti made it back to the major leagues with the Rockies. Carasiti, who throws a fork ball, fought through years of arm injuries to make it back after three seasons.

Two former UConn pitchers are on the move. Reggie Crawford, recovered from his Tommy John surgery, was assigned by the Giants to San Jose in the Class-A California League. The Dodgers moved Ben Casparius to Double-A Tulsa.

Last word

To have a better RPI and increase its chances to host an NCAA regional in the future, UConn baseball will need to get creative in beefing up the nonconference schedule. Some ideas: Try to get Power Five teams coming this way to play Rutgers or BC to make a side trip to Storrs, or the Huskies could make such side trips when they travel to Xavier, Creighton or Butler.