(Editor’s Note: This is the third installment of our “College Recruiting 101 Series Powered by 1MR Athletics & Fitness” in which we delve into the world of college baseball recruiting. In the first edition we spoke to five fathers who sent their sons to Division-I programs. In last week’s edition, we spoke to three fathers who are also coaches that had to navigate through the pandemic. Now we will talk with Glenn Petraitis, who had two sons go through the college recruiting process and is an Emmy-award winning Sports Producer for MSG and NBC Olympics. His younger son, AJ, is a freshman at Le Moyne College)
At what point did you notice that your son was a special talent? How did his college recruiting experience play out?
My youngest son, AJ, was always an awesome catcher, with a cannon of an arm and an older brother, Glenn, who he was always around. From a very young age, AJ, was a student of the game. He always came to his older brother’s practices and Coach Gerry always hit him ground balls and practices blocking with him.
His arm was so strong we finally threw him on a mound. He fired the ball. Me and his older brother, Glenn, who pitched in college started working with him on the mound and he took to it very quickly. As his coach for the early years, I always protected all my pitchers with strict pitch counts and a safe throwing program.
After one game pitching, an umpire friend of mine came up to me and said after having seen him catch over the years and then recently pitch, said “he’s probably the best catcher at his age” he’s seen, but he’s gonna be too tall to stay behind the plate and save his knees. “He’s just as good a pitcher who throws hard, that’s where he should live.” That same umpire had the plate when he pitched his junior year and he threw a gem and said, “kid is going D-1 with his stuff!”
His brand new HS coach, Coach Andrew Abreu at Kings Park, mentioned his potential during an Axcess Baseball podcast, which was impressive. It was nice to hear someone else with an expert eye for baseball notice something in him that we thought was there.
But the one thing that really stood out to me was a DM conversation I had with Dan Cevette from PBR.
During late February of the covid year after the Axcess Baseball podcast, AJ was preparing for varsity season his sophomore year long tossing and throwing pens on our backyard mound. Dan Cevette from PBR noticed on Twitter some of the video he was putting up on Instagram and Twitter.
One night, I got a DM from Dan asking about AJ. Said he looked good and inquired how hard he was throwing. I never gunned him because as a coach I wasn’t hellbent on velocity, as I was on development. Dan asked me to guess because he needed a couple PO’s for the NY State game teams. I guessed around 70 MPH because “I knew” or at least I thought I knew, what an 80 MPH looked like and most parents think their kids throw 90 when they throw 76. Not that guy!
AJ Petraitis (Kings Park 2022) pic.twitter.com/jcHtKCoRqS
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) April 3, 2020
Funny, after I guessed 70 MPH to Dan, the conversation came to a screeching halt. Didn’t hear from him again….until!…that summer during Covid, AJ went to a PBR college showcase recruiting event up in Cortland, NY. No parents were allowed at the showcase field at Cortland, because of Covid. My wife and I watched from our computer when he threw off the mound for the first time.
AJ was one of the first pitchers to go that first day. AJ’s first pitch was 79 MPH and my wife and I both looked at each other in amazement! Next pitch 80, 80, 81, 80, etc, all the way up to 82 MPH! Minutes later, Dan Cevette DM’d me and said, “so much for 70!!!” This was 4 months after our previous conversation came to a screeching halt.
A PBR scout and Dan wrote some very flattering things about AJ that day about his size, velocity, pitches and room for development. They were impressed with him and we were very impressed with the event.
Because we were locked inside because of Covid, PBR’s event was being streamed to hundreds of college coaches who signed up for the recruiting event.
And that’s when the recruiting interest officially started! That night ! Around 10:30pm!
AJ came into my wife and my bedroom with a smile on his face and said, I just got a bunch of emails from coaches interested in me. The first coach to email AJ was from Coach Scott Cassidy from Le Moyne College, a D-II school up in Syracuse, NY.
We knew Le Moyne very well as my daughter, coincidentally was a sophomore nursing student and scholarship volleyball player at Le Moyne College!
AJ received many letters and interest from college from that PBR showcase event and we are grateful for PBR, Dan Cevette and @T_Wills1 for their event and willingness to promote young baseball players for recruiting.
AJ ultimately was selected to play in the NYS PBR Games and long story short, after a great summer of playing for Steel Scout Team for Cam Sorgie in Georgia, Alabama, NJ a couple times, had a bunch of interest from D-I schools and programs he liked.
6’4 LeMoyne-commit AJ Petraitis (Kings Park 2022). FB 83-84 with great mechanics. Sweeping SL 73 MPH pic.twitter.com/NSV2kScSUI
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) February 6, 2022
We visited a couple of the schools who were interested in AJ and we were strongly considering one particular D-I school who offered him a great scholarship until the Head Coach got fired.
That coach liked AJ so much, he called him and told him, “if you can’t play for me, you should go play for Coach Cassidy at Le Moyne, because he was so well respected, ran a great, top-level winning program and it was a great school.”
This coach had coached against Coach Cassidy for a long time at the D-II level and said, “coming to my (now-former) school you’ll fight to win 12 games a year, going to Le Moyne and playing for Cassidy, you’ll be competing for a College World Series every year and he’ll get you drafted!”
That’s all AJ needed to hear and he was hooked.
It took 2 more weeks, but AJ finally decided to commit to Le Moyne and so far, through fall ball and now as they head into practice for his freshman year, things are going very well for him. He loves the team, the school and coach Cassidy.
What would you say was not worth the time or money during the travel ball years?
I feel like the gigantic showcases with many schools at them are generally a waste of money, a lot of money, unless you are a stud who stands out. The majority of the kids don’t stand out, so that’s why you need to find a school who interests you and find a match. Always best to go to individual schools showcases which is what my other 2 kids did to find their chosen schools. Only reason we couldn’t do that with AJ was because of covid. All schools weren’t having camps. The rest of the interest for AJ came from Cam Sorgie drumming up interest with coaches at their showcase games all over. Bucknell, Merrimack, Rutgers, UMASS-Amherst all liked him and offered different levels of scholarships. We backed off Bucknell because they are Patriot league and could only offer academic money and his SATs were 1200 but he would’ve been up against 1400-1590 kids and it wouldn’t have been enough money. Their coach understood.
