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Next Stop, Major Leagues?
NYIT recently turned a rare triple play, when three of its student-athletes were selected during Major League Baseball's first-year player draft.
Senior third baseman Tom Merkle and junior shortstop Mike Gaffney were selected by the Florida Marlins, while senior center fielder Bryan Goelz was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The trio led NYIT's baseball team to a respectable 27-25 record, despite a young pitching staff and a very difficult Division I schedule, which included games against such perennial powerhouses as St. John's University and University of Miami.
Merkle was named the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division I Player of the Year and an American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Division I All-American. He led the Bears offense with a .430 batting average, 20 home runs and 68 RBIs. His 20 homers tied NYIT's single-season record.
Gaffney batted .414 and scored a team-leading 63 runs; Goelz batted .328 and made only two errors in the field.
Coach Bob Hirschfield praised the trio for leading the team, which had a relatively young pitching staff.
"This was our most challenging schedule since '94," says Hirschfield. "I knew coming in we could hit and play defense at a very high Division I level. But the question was how well our pitching would hold up against the top teams in the country."
The team lost its first five games, but had midseason winning streaks of 13 and 8 games.
Still, the pitching staff, which had only one senior, began to wear down and lost 10 of its final 12 games.
Junior Rob Taormina was hurt for three weeks, and one of the team's top pitching prospects, Tom Park, was lost for the season. "Both of those events really hurt our pitching staff, and it took its toll on the rest of the guys," says Hirschfield.
Even so, the season ended on a high note when Gaffney, Goelz and Merkle drew interest from professional baseball clubs. More than 40 NYIT athletes have gone on to play professional baseball.
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