When it comes to overused phrases, “he’s got that dog in ’em” is that at the top of the list.
But Anthony Papa, a former Diamond Award winner, Long Island Champ and Skyline Conference champ, fits that mold to a t.
Papa, who suffered a torn UCL during his senior year of high school and told nobody, wound up pitching a five-hit complete game in the Class A Long Island Championship in 2015. He was able to play through the pain during the season as a hitter and won the Diamond Award.
Later in life, he tore his ACL during conditioning training on the beach. He was able to pitch through the pain as well and to this day never got the ACL repaired.
Followers of Long Island baseball are familiar with Anthony Papa for his dominant days as a 1-2 punch atop the Division rotation with James Varela, but most are not familiar with the path that led him to winning the 2018 Skyline Conference championship with St. Joseph’s.
Let’s take it back first.
Early Days
Levittown is known for its love of baseball and from the early days, Anthony Papa was no exception. He recalled going to his dad’s softball games when he was 4 or 5 years old and trying to run out onto the field to pitch. The love of baseball was ingrained in him from a young age. His brother, seven years older than him, played baseball and football. Anthony said baseball was always his favorite sport, and he loved Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera from a young age, like many kids growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Speaking about Rivera he said, “it’s easy to gravitate towards someone like that.”
Anthony played on the Levittown West Little League. It’s not hard to believe that their team was loaded with future college players like Mark Martinez, Joe Spitaleri, Chris Reilly and James Varela. He noted that while they did not advance as far as Massapequa Coast did this year, they did play in Williamsport.
Division HS
Division HS is an absolute powerhouse. They are in that pantheon of great baseball programs on Long Island. Papa’s graduating year along with the 2014 class was special and they made the absolute most of their window to succeed.
A big influence on Papa’s playing career was his older cousin, Nick, who played Division-I baseball at Wagner College in Staten Island. Anthony stated that he’s close with him and “he gave me a lot of insight on how to play the game.”
Papa wasted no time carving his own path – he fired a perfect game on April 7, 2014 to establish himself as one of the top pitchers in the county. Division cruised to a two-game sweep over North Shore in the 2014 Nassau Class A Finals before losing to Jack Piekos and Bayport-Blue Point in the Class A Long Island Championship. They graduated the Diamond Award winner, Mark Martinez.
During that time, Papa was playing high level travel ball to stay sharp and get some college looks.
He played on the Titans West which was a combination of his Levittown team and Hicksville’s top players. That became the Marucci Titans and then he was apart of the first Body Armor Titans team in the summer of 2014 playing for Bobby DeMichael.
That team was a who’s who of Long Island baseball during the mid 2010s – with recognizable names like Aaron Glickstein, Joe Flynn, Jon Faraci and Nick Fanti. They played in the East Cobb tournament and advanced out of their pool play – which is no small task.
He noted that he began to get noticed by some schools and had his visit with Long Island University HC Mike Gaffney when he got back. He wound up committing there.
The following season, Division returned with a chip on their shoulder and repeated as Nassau County Champs, and had a rematch with Bayport-Blue Point in the Long Island Championship at New York Tech.
Papa, who didn’t pitch much during the regular season, due to a torn UCL that he didn’t reveal, saved himself for the playoffs. He stepped up when it mattered most and delivered a complete game shutout against BBP to capture the Long Island Championship.
The following week they played in the New York State tournament against Byram Hills, but lost to their ace Frankie Vesuvio. As fate would have it, Papa ended up facing Vesuvio again in college in the regional when he played for Cortland in 2018.
Overall, he batted .421 on the season with a .500 OBP and 36 RBIs and was named Co-Diamond Award winner as the county’s top hitter – sharing the award with Floral Park’s Mitch Calandra. It was a remarkable season and it is also the last county championship that the Blue Dragons have won.
Looking back on his high school career, Papa said “It was awesome. I remember going to their camps as a kid and we always used to talk about how we were going to win a county championship and I got to win it as a junior and senior. Coach Tuttle does a great job. We really worked hard – sometimes our practices were going until 7:30/8 o’ clock at night. We would bring our food and eat at practice. We spent a ton of time together,” he added.
Papa was set to begin his career at Long Island University. The only issue was that during his final start of the summer, he felt discomfort in his UCL and it was determined that he would require Tommy John surgery. He had the surgery in December of 2015 which would put him on the shelf for at least a year.
College
After spending the fall 2016 semester at Long Island University, Papa decided that he wanted to head south. He transferred to Coastal Carolina who had just won the Division-I College World Series.
Would he be guaranteed a spot on the team? No, but he was willing to take the shot. So during the spring of the 2017 season, he was 17 months out of Tommy John surgery and sitting 88-91, topping 93 MPH.
The next day his father had a massive heart attack the day after his tryout. He flew back home to New York and his father was in the CCU for 14 days. While he was there, he called Rick Garrett, then the coach of the St. Joseph’s, and told him he was coming home and wanted to transfer.
Anthony’s father wound up being okay, but Anthony went back to Coastal to drop out of his classes and grab all his belongings.
While it represented a fresh start and he was excited to be back home, the reality was that Anthony Papa hadn’t pitched in a meaningful game since the summer of 2015 and had missed the previous two seasons so he needed to get back into playing shape.
He pitched during the summer of 2017 in the LICBL (now the Blue Chip Collegiate League) for the Long Island Astros.
The news became official late in the 2017 calendar year and St. Joseph’s had the attention of the Skyline Conference. They had won in 2016, but took a step back in 2017 when SUNY Maritime defeated them in the playoffs on their way to capturing the championship.
Papa was set to headline the Golden Eagles’ rotation along with a trio of transfers – Joe Murphy from Suffolk CC, PJ Martino from Bridgeport and Nick Clemente from the College of St. Rose.
Papa noted that one of his concerns was that he didn’t really know anyone besides his high school teammate, Tyler Crafa.
As it turns out, the concerns were quickly dispelled once the semester began and he realized how well everyone gelled. That, plus their incredible pitching staff, was enough to overcome any obstacle. Just like they did in 2016, St. Joseph’s was able to capture the Skyline Conference championship that was hosted at Farmingdale State College, and they won the finals in an extra-inning thriller, in the rain, against a very talented Merchant Marine Academy team. Papa’s complete game against Mount St. Mary’s put them in the finals.
Our @DigmiNation Player of the Game is Anthony Papa who fired a 134-pitch complete game in St. Joseph’s 8-3 victory over Mount St. Mary’s to advance to the winner’s bracket in the Skyline Conference tournament pic.twitter.com/kAAXw1JJz8
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) May 4, 2018
Papa spoke about the importance of their 1st baseman, Paul Britt, who was named the MVP of the Skyline Conference tournament.
“Britt was unbelievable, truly incredible all year. I’ve never seen someone get so many clutch hits – it was so impressive,”
Entering the 2019 season, he said they planned “to run it back”, but things got off to a very bad start when Britt went down prior to the season during a conditioning drill and missed the full season. Papa called it a “freak injury”, and the team was unable to fill that void. They wound up losing in the first round of the playoffs to SUNY Maritime.
Papa had another year of eligibility for 2020 but he also suffered a significant injury during conditioning. He stated he tore his ACL while he was working out on the beach. He was able to manage the pain and was prepared for the season before COVID ended that plan.
That meant the end of Anthony’s collegiate baseball career.
“The world has a funny way of pushing you towards where you’re meant to be,” he said. “Teaching and helping kids is what I love to do,” he added. He was working at Prospect Sports and coaching the Body Armor Titans during that summer and continued to the next couple seasons as well.
Present Day
Papa’s true love is teaching the game of baseball and everything has led him to this point. While he was working part-time as a pitching instructor at Prospect Sports and attempting to make his comeback for the 2020 season, the cancelled collegiate season made the decision much easier to hang up the cleats and dive full-time into pitching instructions which is what he does to this day. He takes pride in the fact that he’s never had to have another job and has been able to do what he loves.
“I built up a nice little client base pretty quick and I haven’t had to do anything else besides work full-time at Prospect.”
Papa has a great deal of love for the game of baseball and he’s able to stay involved by training some of the best pitchers on Long Island. His impact during his playing career will last forever as his name will always be synonymous with the great Division teams of the mid 2010s.
