Baseball Alumni Return to Turchin

 

Tulane baseball wrapped up its first alumni weekend since 2007 on Saturday at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium, welcoming back over 70 former players and honoring the 1994 class, an NCAA team, for their 20-year reunion.

At 11:30, the pre-1994 alumni engaged in their own 53-minute game of slow-pitch baseball. Despite former catcher Chad Sutter’s impressive outing on the rubber (read: five feet in front of the pitchers mound) and a solid Joe Brockhoff Jr. behind the plate, the Green Team fell to the opposing Blue, 4-3.

Prior to the first pitch of the second game, Voice of the Green Wave Todd Graffagnini recognized all 70+ alumni, who stretched 180 feet on the baselines from first to third.

The contest between the current Tulane squad and more recent grads began at 2p.m. and featured 2001 and 2005 College World Series favorites such as Tommy Manzella, Brian Bogusevic, Brad Emaus, Cat Everett, Barth Melius, Joe Holland, Greg Dini and Johny Kaplan, all of whom had never played at the new Turchin Stadium, which opened for the 2008 season.

Tulane freshman JP France started on the mound for the alumni team and went four solid innings, striking out five and giving up only one run on three scattered hits, two to freshman Stephen Alemais. Alemais, the projected starting shortstop for the Wave, was 3-4 with two stolen bases and two runs scored.

France was opposed by redshirt senior right hander Tyler Mapes, who gave up a lead-off walk to current Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Josh Prince to start the game. After allowing a follow-up single to Manzella of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Mapes, a projected starter for next weekend’s opening series, settled in and retired 11 of his next 15 batters before coming out after the top of the fourth.

For the remainder of the game, fans would enjoy pitching performances from former Greenies Aaron Rogers, Mike Romano, Nick Pepitone, Ricky Fairchild, Jonathan Garrett and Melius. In addition to the returning pitchers, fans also got the opportunity to see Nick Boullosa, Jeremy Schaffer, Anthony Scelfo, Drew Allain, Blake Crohan, Jared Dyer and other returning Green Wave players back in action.

The current Tulane squad racked up five runs on nine hits and no defensive errors, defeating the alumni team 5-3.

The 2014 Tulane roster features nineteen players new to the Green Wave, three junior college transfers and sixteen freshmen. This alumni game gave the incoming players a chance to showcase their skills against a seasoned group of returning players before opening NCAA play, which will begin Feb. 14 at 6:30p.m. as the Green Wave takes on University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff for a four game weekend series at Turchin Stadium.

Stay tuned for a week of pre-season baseball coverage leading up to the first pitch on Friday night, and don’t forget to head out to Greer Field at Turchin Stadium for the 2014 opener!  

 

Now a little about me: My name is Kaitlin, and I’m currently a sophomore at Tulane majoring in French/Spanish/Education/Psychology (I’ve still got some time to figure this out, right?). I’ve been attending Tulane baseball (and football!) games since I was about 9 years old, so this alumni game was very special to me; it was so awesome seeing my childhood favorite players don the olive and blue one more time! I’m currently on staff with the Hullabaloo, Tulane’s student-run newspaper, as a sports writer and associate editor. I’m a first-time blogger and a bit technologically challenged, so bear with me as I juggle my schoolwork and try to figure this thing out!