With the promotion of Anthony Kay, that gives Long Island another player in “The Show”. While we may not be southern California, Florida or Texas in terms of generating power arms, we are right in that next tier. In fact, here’s some data according to baseball-almanac.com of the birth state of players during the 2019 season.
California: 207
Florida: 113
Texas: 89
Georgia: 50
Illinois: 33
Tennessee: 29
Ohio: 29
Pennsylvania: 28
North Carolina: 26
New York: 25
New Jersey: 22
This is a pretty basic statistic showing how baseball in the northeast has been overlooked but we are pretty well represented across the game. Diving in more specifically to Long Island, we have had a good streak recently with native players making into the show. Historically, there’s been 77 players from Long Island in the big leagues. Let’s take a look at the past 16 years, so back to 2003. Besides the players’ name we will list their high school, the big league team they debuted with along with the year.
Joe Valentine (Deer Park): Cincinnati Reds, 2003
Craig Hansen (Glen Cove): Boston Red Sox, 2005
John Lannon (Chaminade): Washington Nationals, 2007
Mike Parisi (Sachem North): St. Louis Cardinals, 2008
Matt Daley (Garden City): Colorado Rockies, 2009
Reid Gorecki (Kellenberg): Atlanta Braves, 2009
Mike Belfiore (Commack): Baltimore Orioles, 2013
Sean Nolin (Seaford): Toronto Blue Jays, 2013
Nick Tropeano (West Islip): Houston Astros, 2014
Marcus Stroman (Pat-Med): Toronto Blue Jays, 2014
Steven Matz (Ward Melville): New York Mets, 2015
Danny Burawa (Rocky Point): New York Yankees, 2015
Kevin McCarthy (Kellenberg): Kansas City Royals, 2016
Kyle McGowin (Pierson): Washington Nationals, 2018
Anthony Kay (Ward Melville) : Toronto Blue Jays 2019
Before that stretch, there was actually a very prosperous stretch for the two decades before that with players like Neal Heaton, Keith Osik, Frank Catalanotto, Ross Gload, John Habyan, Paul Gibson, Jim Mecir, Pete Harnisch, etc. So, let’s be proud of the area that we are in and players should be aiming to be the next great one.
