January 17, 2011
NECBL Hall inductees add touch of class
Colorado Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta was one of the first three players inducted into the NECBL Hall of Fame. (photo: Getty Images)
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the January-February 2011 issue of New England Baseball Journal.
If the New England Collegiate Baseball League were a person, it would be a year shy of voting and paying taxes. But on Nov. 6, the NECBL showed it has grown up considerably since its birth in 1993, holding its inaugural Hall of Fame ceremonies.
The five initial inductees — three players and two non-players — showed off the history and purpose of the league.
The first three players inducted were Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier, Colorado Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta and former Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox pitcher Mark Malaska. The non-players were NECBL founder Joe Consentino, and former NECBL president and former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent.
Consentino gave the league life; Vincent gave it credibility. Ethier, Iannetta and Malaska gave it purpose. When Consentino thought of creating a collegiate league for the New England market, he envisioned a legitimate showcase for New England players to help them on their way to professional baseball.
Inspiration first hit Consentino when he went to Muzzy Field in Bristol, Conn., in 1993 for the Big East tournament. He was impressed with the facility and found that it wasn’t used for much beyond the tournament and a twilight league. He put together a group to try to create a team in Bristol to join the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League, but its application was rejected.
“In my mind, I saw this wasn’t a bad thing, but a good thing,” Consentino said, “because we could start our own league in New England and call it the NECBL, the New England Collegiate Baseball League, because god knows the Cape Cod League has very few kids from New England.”
In late ’93, the NECBL came together with five teams, all based in Connecticut. They played their first season a year later. They were a small operation, but they had talent. Consentino is quick to point out that Minnesota Twins closer Joe Nathan was an early product of the NECBL, playing with the Fairfield Stallions in 1994.
Vincent came to the NECBL in 1997. He had spent three years as MLB commissioner, presiding over the sport during the 1990 player lockout. He was a polarizing figure in the majors, resigning in 1992 after a no-confidence vote from the owners.
Consentino calls Vincent “probably one of the most beloved and hated commissioners, hated in the sense by the owners, loved by baseball fans, and loved by the players, who always felt that he was in their corner. He came and became our president for six years. Talk about instant credibility.”
“When Fay came on as the president of the NECBL,” current NECBL commissioner Mario Tiani said, “that’s when the NECBL really developed recognition as a national level-type league.”
Tiani says it was about that time the NECBL began to recruit from around the country. These days, college kids come from all over the country to play for teams in all six New England states.
Iannetta, a native of Providence, R.I., represents the original mission of the NECBL, giving New England talent a chance to shine. He was the NECBL Defensive Player of the Year with the Newport Gulls in 2003. He was also a fierce bat, hitting .302 with 20 RBI.
“He had all the tools as a catcher,” Consentino said, “and was every inch a pro prospect who projected from pitch one that he was the man in charge of the game.”
Iannetta was surprised by his induction and says he was humbled to hear some of the Hall of Fame ceremony guests, which included Bill Lee, Bob Stanley, George Foster and Joe Morgan, talk about their accomplishments. Iannetta played in both the Cape League and the NECBL, and says he preferred his time in Newport.
“I definitely had a good time in the Cape,” he said. “It was fun. But the way the NECBL is run, especially the Newport organization, it was first class all the way. They really treated players like they were family. And they provided us with so many things that you just wouldn’t expect from a summer team. We had meals after the game, we had bus transportation to all the games. The baseball was great, the atmosphere was great.”
Malaska and Ethier both came from outside of New England. Malaska is a Youngstown, Ohio, native who came to the Danbury Westerners from the University of Akron and played in 1998 and ‘99. Ethier played for Arizona State University in his native Phoenix and played for the Keene Swamp Bats in 2001.
Tiani considers Ethier’s career an NECBL success story. Ethier didn’t have an outstanding year with the Swamp Bats, but he showed enough improvement to become a quality prospect, signed by the Oakland A’s in 2003 and becoming the Texas League MVP and the A’s Minor League Player of the Year.
“He’s one of the accomplishments of the league,” Tiani said. “He wasn’t a quote ‘superstar’ at that point. It gave him an opportunity to play with a wooden bat, and to get into the full swing of things. And he took it to the next level and beyond.”
Malaska, on the other hand, did light up the NECBL, even if it started out rough. Malaska, a pitching prospect with the Rays and Sox, came to the Westerners as an outfielder. The Westerners, however, thought they were getting a left-handed pitcher.
“I told them, no, I’m an outfielder,” Malaska said. “They seemed a little bit annoyed by that. But I went through a couple of sideline sessions anyway. And I really didn’t know what I was doing.”
He may not have been a pitcher yet, but he was certainly a complete player on offense and defense. He was a two-time All-Star and won the All-Star Game MVP in ’99. He was voted the NECBL’s top pro prospect in 1998 and ’99, and broke several NECBL records. His records for total bases, extra-base hits and triples still stand.
Tiani — GM of the Westerners at the time — recruited Malaska to the team.
“He came in and he was just outstanding from Day One, and I was lucky enough to get him back for a second year,” he said.
He remembers Malaska hitting in the home run derby at the All-Star Game in ’98 in Keene. Tiani says the right-field line is a bit odd in Keene, stretching about 375 feet. The lights are outside the stadium.
Tiani is happy with the league’s progress, and he believes a lot of the seeds planted early on are now starting to bear fruit with major-league players such as Iannetta and Ethier.
“Being a young league, only 17 years old, we’ve done pretty well,” he said, “and a lot of our players are just starting to make it at the major-league level.”
But Tiani was happiest listening to the players speak at the Hall of Fame Ceremony. Malaska and Iannetta were both there; Ethier (at home with a new child) sent a video.
“I guess those were the nicest things to hear,” he said, “how they spoke about their experience and their time playing in the New England Collegiate Baseball League and in the communities they played at.”
Nick A. Zaino III can be reached at feedback@baseballjournal.com
