Holliston's Major Leaguer Moves Ahead

The statistics speak for themselves.

14 Major League seasons. A .254 lifetime batting average with an impressive 2 for 3 performance in the 1998 World Series.  When he
retired as an active player, he was second in lifetime National League pinch hits and first in lifetime National League pinch hit runs batted in.  And it all began here.

It’s been 24 years since Mark Sweeney last appeared in a Holliston baseball uniform.  On that day, his three hits helped propel the Panthers to the 1987 Massachusetts Division II State Baseball Championship. These days, he works as a coach and special assistant in baseball operations for the Los Angeles Dodgers with whom he finished his playing career in 2008.

“My playing career was full of lasting memories and feeling like a little kid every day,” says Sweeney.  “My dream of playing one day in the major leagues was my only wish and to say I was fortunate would be an understatement.  It was truly a blessing.”

Local fans were blessed to see Sweeney rise from high school star to major league hero.  His performance for Holliston in the 1987 state playoff run is the stuff of legends.  Holliston entered the playoffs as Tri-Valley League Champions, Sweeney having already been named league MVP. 

In the first game, Sweeney was 3 for 4 with a homerun in
a 10-5 defeat of Canton.  He was 5 for 5 with a homerun in a 16-0 romp over Dighton-Rehoboth.  His dramatic three run, eighth inning homerun (4 for 5) stunned Walpole in a 10-9 come from behind victory, capturing the Division II South Crown. 

The Eastern Mass Division II championship was a game for the ages.  Facing Stoneham, arguably the best team in the state, the teams fought back and forth into extra innings.  Stoneham scored a run in the top of the tenth to take an 11-10 lead, but Holliston fought back to tie the score, as Sweeney came to the plate.

This game did not mirror Sweeney’s prior playoff performances.  He came to the plate 0 for 4, with the bases loaded, and facing future Kansas City Royal Joe Vitiello.  But the inevitable could not be delayed.  As wind swirled and threatening skies choked the field, Sweeney drove a ground ball up the middle and bedlam ensued.  And then it began to pour.

After the Stoneham win, his three hits in a 9-5 victory over North Middlesex in the state final was anti-climatic.  But that win remains high on Sweeney’s memory list, remembering his jump into teammate’s arms following the game as his favorite high school baseball memory.

Sweeney extends his best wishes to his friends and family who were so important and supportive in his career, indicating “I will NEVER
forget where I came from and the sacrifices my mom and dad and the rest of my family have made over the years.”

“My future is always in the now, and I would love to continue to stay in baseball in any way and to try to give back to the game for
what I have received,” he notes.   He also plans on being “the best dad to my two stepdaughters, Jaden (11) and Kendall (7) and my first born due this October” as well as to be there “as much
as possible for my love, my beautiful wife Cindy.”