SYRACUSE, N.Y (NCC News) – The crack of a wooden bat on a warm afternoon. It’s a sound that can only mean one thing. Summer baseball is back in Syracuse.
But not just any baseball, college baseball, which to Syracuse Spartans President J.J. Potrikus is some of the best you can get.
“Ya know, college baseball for me is just one of the purest forms of baseball there is,” Portrikus explained.
This week, the Syracuse Spartans kick off their fifth season in the New York Collegiate Baseball League after falling in the first round of the playoffs in 2021. The team boasts 11 local players, the biggest number in the team’s history.
For Matt Alexander, a Syracuse native and Bucknell infielder, the decision to return home to the Spartans again this summer wasn’t too hard.
“It’s pretty close to home, good program, I can get a lot of good work in here, it’s just a good community, good area, a good place to play baseball,” Alexander said.
However, the biggest change for the Spartans this season comes in the dugout. Paul Ludden is taking over the head coaching duties from former coach Matt Michalski. Ludden seemed eager to get started on this new challenge.
“I’m excited for a new learning experience for myself, experience to work with some guys from some different levels, we got DI, DII, DIII, NIAA, JUCO guys. So really just excited to try to get them better and develop them,” Ludden explained.
Before Ludden found his way to the Spartans dugout, the Cicero-North Syracuse High School product made a name for himself on the diamond, starting his collegiate career at Clarkson before putting up big numbers at SUNY Brockport.
After a short stint in professional baseball in the Pecos League, Ludden made his way into coaching. First he was as the head coach at Onondaga Community College, where the Spartans call home, and now he’s with Cazenovia College.
Yet for Potrikus, his former head coach Matt Michalski only needed to say one thing to let him know he had his new leader.
“The best reference I could get would be from Matt Michalski who said, ‘He’s a Spartan, he does things the Spartan way, he knows the way you guys expect things to do and he’s going to come in and lead these guys.’”
While Ludden mainly focuses on the product his team puts on the field, he also hopes that the Spartans embrace and take in the area they’re fortunate to call home this summer just as he once did in summer baseball.
“But I remember my personal experiences from playing summer ball and then pro ball was just the people that I met coming to the games,” Ludden said. “So I’m hoping these guys can buy into that and really make a connection with the community because it can really go a long way.”