It’s been 36 years since Northport has won a Suffolk County Championship. They came awfully close in 2016, when they were defeated in three games by West Islip, but they came away just short.
In 1983, when John DeMartini was still the JV coach, they not only won Suffolk County, but defeated Bethpage in the Long Island Championship. The winning pitcher in that game? Rick Vichroski.
Rick improved his record to 12-0 that season, his third year on varsity. The Tigers leaned on his arm heavily that season, as he accounted for 46 percent of his team’s wins on the way to an appearance in the New York State semifinals.
Vichroski, 53, is now the owner/operator of Human Healthy Vending and lives in Rhode Island, but his memories of his playing days are still cherished. And they did not end with winning the Carl Yastrzemski Award that season.
After graduating from Northport HS in 1983, he went onto play at C.W. Post, where he went 5-2 as a freshman, including 5-0 in conference play. A sign of the times, in one outing he pitched all 12 innings against St. Francis in which he threw 209 (!) pitches and won 4-3. Two days later, he pitched in relief. Needless to say, that would not fly now-a-days.
He was forced to transfer to Nassau CC after his grades plummeted but the decision proved to be a good one.
“I went to Nassau and went 10-0 and we won the whole region and went on to play at the Junior College World Series in Grand Junction, CO,” he said. They wound up winning two games in the series, and ultimately finishing fifth in the nation. Had they won one more game, they would’ve gone on to face perennial powerhouse San Jacinto which was led by ace Curt Schilling. That year, Nassau had two draft picks (catcher Rich Ironside and 1B Julio Morales), that helped contribute to their outstanding season.
Vichroski was a bulldog on the mound, pitching deep into every game, regardless of the score or how much rest he was on.
“It’s amazing the opportunities you get when you go to a two-year college and pitch well,” he said. After that season, he got a letter from Mike Sheppard, the Head Coach of Seton Hall, which was his preferred college coming out of Northport, but his grades didn’t allow him to get in.
With the previous two years of college, he was able to not only get into his dream school (turning down some other offers) but getting a full ride. The results couldn’t have been better.
The Northport native set a program-record in single season wins (12) and complete games (8) that is still standing to this day. His catcher? Fellow Long Island native and future Hall of Famer Craig Biggio. His first baseman? The 1995 AL MVP Mo Vaughn.
He was one strike away from completing a no-hitter in one game, and shook off Biggio–who called for a fastball–to throw a slider which resulted in a bloop single over the first basemen’s head to break it up.
“That’s why you don’t shake off a catcher–especially a Hall of Famer!” he said. “I remember it like it was yesterday.”
In the Big East tournament, he beat Charles Nagy of UCONN, who went on to pitch 14 years in the Major Leagues, win 129 games and finish in the Top-10 of the AL Cy Young voting three times (named to All-Star team each time). In the Northeast Regional in Alabama, he beat Auburn in a complete game, which included Frank Thomas, a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
After a season like that at the Division-I level, the two previous seasons before that and his pitchability which included a “devastating curveball and low-90s fastball”, according to one local newspaper at the time, you would think that a future in professional baseball was in order.
“After the season my coach spoke to me and said that I’d probably get drafted in the top-12 rounds but if I came back for my senior year, they’d try to get me drafted in the top-2 rounds,” said Vichroski. “I really wanted to help my team, so I came back,” he added.
This tale is one that doesn’t have the greatest of endings.
“It was just a snowball effect,” said Vichroski. “I had a bad attitude, and bad grades and my arm was bothering me from having knee problems and it didn’t help that the coach was an ex-Marine and we didn’t really see eye-to-eye. On top of that, I was losing weight and he thought I was using drugs–which couldn’t have been further from the truth. I just wanted to do whatever I could to pitch and get out there for my team.”
The other thing was the times. Now, a pitcher would probably sit out a year and use a medical redshirt season, which would allow them to get healthy and return for a fifth season. Back then, out of sight meant out of mind and probably the end of your career.
“Seton Hall was like a factory back then,” he said. “If you can’t play, you get forgotten and they’ll replace you,” he added.
He didn’t have an X-Ray or an MRI to diagnose the problem, and he wound up finishing his decorated college career without getting drafted. The wear and tear from his playing days took its toll. He was diagnosed with spinal stenosis which later required four back surgeries and a neck fusion.
“I didn’t realize any of it then,” he said. He added that he often took ibuprofen to dull the pain, and sometimes he couldn’t feel his fingers on the mound.
After the initial disappointed wore off, he was able to get on with his life. He got married, started and family and has two children.
“I coached my boy playing from little league until American League ball, but I wanted him to get a career. I went to college to play baseball and then had to figure out my life, I wanted him and my daughter to go to college and have a career after,” he said.
“Baseball teaches you so many life lessons such as perseverance,” he said. “It also teaches you structure, which I have to this day.”
That has helped him become very successful. After college, he worked in sales and become manager of an office equipment company called Konica. In 1999, he began his own company called ATM Advantage 2000, which he later sold. He then started Knock Out Vending, D.B.A. Human Healthy Vending which offered healthy snack options for children.
Time goes on but the memories remain vivid for Vichroski, who remains Northport’s lone recipient of the coveted Yaz Award and their last pitcher to earn the win in a Suffolk County or Long Island Championship.
“Jim O’Sullivan and John DeMartini were such great coaches,” he said. “What a great influence they have been on my life.”
