New Series On Hartford County Pro Baseball Players Debuts Monday

HARTFORD COUNTY, CT — North-central Connecticut, and Hartford County in particular, is not well-known for churning out major league baseball players, yet there is actually a fairly rich history of successful athletes coming from the region. From 1960s World Series champions Moe Drabowsky (Windsor) and Dick McAuliffe (Farmington), to 1990s-era champions and All-Stars Rob Dibble (Southington), Carl Pavano (Southington) and Ricky Bottalico (Newington), to standouts of today such as George Springer (New Britain) and Aaron Civale (East Windsor), the area has produced some bona fide big league stars over the past six decades.

Under normal circumstances, pitchers and catchers would be ready to report to spring training beginning Monday, and anticipation would begin to swell as exhibition games would soon be starting. However, that scenario is unlikely to occur on time due to the current lockout situation in Major League Baseball.

To help fill part of the void, on Monday Patch editors in Hartford County will debut a 9-part series of feature stories about former pro baseball players of the 1980s and 1990s, all of whom hail from or currently live in the county. The oldest is 61, the youngest 47; their tales are timeless.

Most of the featured players will not be household names; just three actually made it to the big leagues, combining for a grand total of 196 games played. Four advanced as high as Triple-A, and two leveled off at Double-A.

They gladly shared their experiences of long bus rides in faraway minor league locations such as Burlington, Iowa, Batavia, New York, Billings, Montana, Kingsport, Tennessee and even in their own backyard of New Britain - not to mention Japan, China, Mexico and Italy. Some stayed involved in baseball following their playing days, while others entered the business world.

No matter which direction they chose, their stories are fascinating, and considering they beat odds of more than 200 to 1 by actually signing with a professional organization, they are part of a relatively small fraternity.

No town will be repeated; there are nine innings in a baseball game, so we are going with nine ex-athletes from nine different hometowns. Again, we debut this series Monday. See you then!