Editor’s Note: Brandon Alberto is a 2015 graduate of Newfield, and the captain of New York Tech. He is currently in his redshirt-senior season, after missing 2019 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He spoke with us following the abrupt ending to the 2020 NCAA season.
Alright, so let’s start off with the NCAA abruptly cancelling the 2020 season. Can you tell us where you were when the decision came down ?
We were in the middle of a game against Felician. None of us knew at the time – actually we were winning 20-8 or something. The coaches pulled me over and said ‘Berto go get hot!’ And like, I’m our closer so I was like ‘what – what do you mean get hot?’ We were winning by 12 or 13 runs, I pitched two days prior and they were like ‘this might be your last collegiate game’. I was obviously shook, and I have a big mouth so we were talking about it in the dugout and I respectfully declined pitching in that game because I’m coming off Tommy John and my arm and all that. But obviously we have a lot of seniors on our team and everyone was upset. We didn’t know at the time whether it was going to be the end or whether they were going to give us another year. We had no idea and the coaches reiterated to us to focus on the game, finish playing it out and see what happens. Obviously now, we learned that the season is cancelled and all the work that we put in during the fall and the winter, and the games we played in the spring mean nothing now. We gotta hit the reset button and come back to work once we are allowed to practice again and see what happens from there and hopefully get back to Carey and win an East Regional.
Were you guys hoping that you would at least be able to finish out the regular season? Or was it pretty clear that it wasn’t going to be an option?
Personally for me, I sat out all last year and watched our guys do a helluva job and get to the College World Series, win the region and all that. It wouldn’t have sat well with me if there was a chance that we play just the conference season into the conference tournament and nothing else beyond that because everyone in that locker room – the coaches and all them, we expect to be back in the regional, and hopefully get back to Carey. So just to have the consolation of an ECC playoff game or an ECC Championship, it just didn’t sit well with me. Especially since I didn’t get to participate last year in all the fun that the guys had.
Now let’s talk about last year – you worked really hard to come back. But what was it like being forced to sit out while the team experienced all that success?
I couldn’t have been more excited for the guys. Being a captain of the team, obviously it’s difficult to not be a part of all the fun but I still have a job to do within the clubhouse as a captain to keep the boat going in the right direction. There were times last year that I would tell the coaches ‘I’m going to get back for playoffs – I don’t care if I lose a year of eligibility, we’re going for this thing’. I was by no means anywhere close to being ready. But I kept my head in it, and my head was in it every single game even though I knew there was no shot I’d be going on the field and playing that day. It was all because of the culture that we established at Tech among the players and coaches since they’ve been here.
You guys had so much momentum once you won that regional. Was there any question once you went up to Southern New Hampshire that you’d win?
When we got to Southern New Hampshire, we were like ‘damn we can really do this thing.’ Once we got there, we were just going to give it our all for two or three games and see what happens and try to take care of business. Those games were a lot of fun up there, even though I didn’t get to play, and Southern New Hampshire is a very, very good team. The games against those guys came down to a bunch of little things, and that’s what the coaches preach to us – taking care of the little things like holding guys to stay short, or backing up and all those types of things.
For people that don’t know about Tommy John Surgery, can you talk a little about the emotional roller coaster that the rehab process is?
I did not know that they were cutting part of my hamstring out and putting it in my elbow when I was going into surgery so when I woke up from surgery I was in a lot of pain in my leg and my arm. But other than that, the rehab process coming back from Tommy John for me was awful. I went through a lot of bad things, dealt with severe swelling in the back of my arm where I had to get prescribed steroids for that to make the swelling go down. Listen, there were so many times throughout the process in the summer, the fall even into the early winter where I thought in my head ‘I’m not going to get back to where I was before surgery’ and that would’ve killed me to be a shell of myself of where I was before the surgery. But I stuck to it, kept trying to push myself even harder and finally somewhere along – like the third week of January – everything just kind of changed. I started to feel good, my arm wasn’t giving me any problems, I wasn’t holding back on anything, I was just letting it rip. It was a crazy process, it definitely was challenging mentally, because I would have mental battles in my head all the time like ‘I’m not going to get back.”
Was there anything that helped you along the way, like family, friends, religion, music?
A lot of it was my teammates. A lot of those guys knew how I was before and knew how much I cared about the team and the culture that we had. We’re all just a big family at Tech. A lot of the guys really had my back, and talked me through it the entire time. I’m the type of guy that wears his emotions, so everyone on the team would know if I was feeling down about it. They would just keep pushing me, and pushing me, whether it was on the field, at the baseball house, or this and that. They did a good job of supporting me, and it was good knowing that they were behind my back just as much as I was behind theirs.
You’ve been through it all at Tech – you were recruited when they were D-I, they dropped to D-II, you went through a coaching change, then went to the World Series. What was it like when you found out you were going to D-II?
I’m not going to sugarcoat it – we stunk that year – my sophomore year before that changed to D-II. You know what? Obviously, we were very upset getting moved to D-II at first because we all came here to be D-I, but at the end of the day, we were an independent D-I. We weren’t competing for anything. It was basically just a schedule of a bunch of scrimmages that meant nothing. So it changed into a good thing among the players. This time we get to compete for a conference, or a regional, or individual accolades. It gave us more motivation going to the field knowing the games mean something.
As far as the seniors go, are most guys set on coming back or is it circumstantial?
I would say, feeling it out now – obviously a lot can change from now to then – but I would say out of our 14 seniors, 11 or 12 want to come back. There’s a lot of variables that’s included in that, whether it’s money to come to school – I know we have a big class coming in. But listen, I’m set on coming back. I didn’t go through surgery and rehab this entire time for a couple saves and 3 weeks of the season. So, I know a lot of guys feel the same way. We were a good team last year and we expect to be back in the mix to represent the East down in Carey, and we’re going to really try to put our best foot forward because the season got taken away.
