Alfred University Produces Pro Baseball Players Without a Baseball Team

Alfred University has a winning football tradition. No football coach has retired from AU with a losing career record since 1936. That was the same year football eclipsed baseball on the college’s western New York campus.

That year also marked the ascendance of football with a new head coach, 27-year old Alex Yunevich. When he retired 40 years later in 1976, the football Saxons had experienced only five losing seasons. In the next five decades the Division 3 football team won over 80 percent of its games.

Remarkably, despite no intercollegiate baseball for 75 years, more Saxons have played professional baseball than professional football. (Of course, with the minor leagues there have been many more professional baseball players than professional football players.)  The four Saxons who have played professional baseball outnumber the three who have played professional football, according to the authoritative Sports Reference.  And each Alfred baseball player intersected uniquely with America’s pastime during his career.

In May, after just three games with Elmira, Stivers was demoted to the Class B Springfield (Illinois) Browns as St. Louis sorted out their nearly 500 minor league players.  There he pitched in seven games, losing three.  In August he was sent to another Class B team, the Port Chester (New York) Clippers where he finished the season.  Stivers’ first professional win came on August 12 when he shut out Bridgeport 7-0, striking out eight and allowing just five hits. He pitched in seven games for Port Chester and won three, helping the Clippers to the Colonial League championship.   His overall 1948 record was 3-6 in 17 games.

With Port Chester, Stivers played on one of the first integrated teams in minor league baseball.  His teammate Puerto Rican native Carlos Bernier who began his United States professional career with Port Chester as an outfielder/second baseman, and later played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1953.  He was one of three Clippers to make to the major leagues and the only one to play regularly (in 1953) and at the top level of the minor leagues for the next 14 years.

In 1949 Stivers again opened the season in New York’s Southern Tier, this time with the Olean Oilers, 95 miles west of Corning.  In his delayed debut on June 7 Stivers won in relief over Bridgeport when he pitched a scoreless tenth inning and drove in the winning run in the bottom of the inning.  In the same game, Chuck Harmon, who would later become the Cincinnati Reds first African American player, made his debut with Olean. The Oilers' manager was Shan Deniston, a thirty-year old California native.  Deniston would later become the only professional manager to meet two of Alfred’s four professional players.

In July, after ten games with Olean, Stivers pitched once for the Gloversville-Johnston (New York) Glovers and finished the season with the Pine Bluff (Arkansas) Cardinals.  He lost four games at Pine Bluff and in one playoff game gave up three consecutive home runs.  He finished the 1949 season with a 1-8 record in 22 games.

A month later DiMartino was moved to another Phillies team, the Greenville (South Carolina) Spinners of the Tri-State League. On August 21 he beat the league’s all-time single season strikeout king.  DiMartino started and spun a seven-hitter in a 6-3 win, triumphing over Spartanburg ace Marion “Murph” Murszewski.  (Murszewski finished the season with 239 strikeouts in 225 innings.)

DiMartino pitched in 10 games for Wilmington at the end of the season.  He appeared in a total of 30 games during 1952 but scant data from Granby and Wilmington leave his 1952 statistical profile incomplete.

Records do show, however, that in Wilmington DiMartino was teammates with Jack Meyer, a future Philadelphia Phillie whose off-field activities often overshadowed his pitching ability. Meyer was part of the so-called “Dalton Gang,” a group of Philadelphia hell-raising pitchers who rose through the minors together.  In his sixth year with Philadelphia, in 1960, an after-hours “Dalton Gang” altercation spilled over into the team hotel.  Meyer’s injuries required surgery and he missed the rest of the season.  Unable to fully recover, Meyer retired after pitching just one game in 1961.

DiMartino opened the 1953 season with the Bradford (PA) Phillies of the PONY (Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York) League.  The team's home field was Community Ballpark, 60 miles southwest of Alfred. Like many minor league teams, both then and today, the season opened with lots of fanfare.

DiMartino was released in June after winning two games and losing two. He returned to Long Island and later relocated to North Carolina where he passed away in 2008. His obituary said an arm injury had cut short his baseball career.  DiMartino was AU’s first pro baseball player for nine years until Stivers earned his master’s degree.

Three summers later, Jim Moran, a scout with the Kansas City Royals was watching. “He caught my eye because he was an athlete,” said Moran.  “I saw his arm. He had a great body.  Strong as a horse. He had speed. He ran well.”

In June, 1988 Prusia was selected in the in the 36th round of the major league draft by the Royals. He was the 933rd player chosen and received a $7,500 bonus to sign.  He was the third of six Union-Endicott baseball players to play professionally between 1986 to 1994.  Prusia was assigned to the Royals’ Gulf Coast League rookie team in Davenport, Florida, home of their brand new Baseball City spring training complex.

As a 22-year old college graduate Prusia was among the team’s oldest players, but he had no prior experience using a wood bat. “The biggest thing was trying to find a bat I was comfortable with,” he said. He found one immediately, recalled teammate Hugh Walker, a first round draft pick from Jacksonville (Arkansas) High School and an outfielder like Prusia.

Prusia played outfield with first-rounder Walker and Kerwin Moore, a 16th round pick who played briefly with the Oakland Athletics in 1996.  Prusia was usually in left field. “He had a really good arm,” said Walker.  “He had some assists out there. [Three in 37 games, to be precise]. He’d come up throwing.”

At the end of the season Prusia was the team’s top hitter and among the best in the league.  He led the Royals in batting average (.263), slugging average (.388) and runs batted in (30) in the 63-game season. (See "Team Batting" chart below.)  His four home runs tied for the league lead and he was in the top ten in doubles and RBIs. (See "League Player Batting" chart below.)  The Royals finished first in the Gulf Coast League north division with a 39-24 record.

In 1989 spring training Prusia was one of three college football players with the Royals who had transitioned to baseball.  At Baseball City he prepared for the season sharing football memories with two outfielders from Auburn University --- Heisman Trophy winner running back Bo Jackson and his teammate wide receiver Trey Gainous.  Jackson was entering his third major league season.  Gainous, a 1987 seventh round pick, had played two years in the low minor leagues.

Walker said they never discussed the shift in playing time. “We didn’t get that personal,” said Walker, “but a lot of time you see what’s going on.”  The competition among teammates playing the same position created a ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ clubhouse climate.

“That’s the hard part,” Walker continued, “You get to know to know people.  You work out with them.  You’re riding on the bus with them every day. You don’t know what they’re thinking…So you have to be careful in conversations and how you go about it. You kind of keep things to small talk.”

Overall Prusia played in 85 of the Foxes’ 135 games. He hit three home runs with 25 runs batted in but his batting average (.235), on-base percentage (.294) and slugging average (.307) were all about team average.

In 1990 Prusia turned down an invitation to return to spring training with the Royals.  "I started my career using my Ceramics Engineering degree," he said.

Reflecting on Prusia’s career, Walker said, “For him to be a multi-sport athlete and come out of a small college and sign a contract is unbelievable.”

“What are the odds?” Walker wondered.  “That a scout thought in his mind that this kid deserved an opportunity that millions of kids wanted and he got a chance to live a dream out for a couple of years.  That’s a feat in itself.”

Prusia is the only Alfred four-year degree graduate to play pro baseball and now lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He works as a Bulk Gas Sales Manager for Arc3 Gases.

In 2017 Evan Katz became Alfred’s most recent pro baseball player in unique fashion.  Katz (author of this story and a lifelong baseball fanatic who attended Alfred for two years) had dreamed of playing pro baseball as a child, but never even played the game until he was 45.  After 15 years of adult recreational baseball Katz searched for a minor league team that would make his dream come true.

After an 18-month hunt for a team the independent Pecos League granted Katz’s wish.  At 61 he played two games as a pitcher and outfielder for the White Sands (New Mexico) Pupfish.  As a pitcher he walked one batter and hit another. One runner scored and Katz’s earned run average soared to infinity. In the next game as an outfielder Katz struck out on a 3-2 pitch in his only at bat.

Varsity baseball disappeared from Alfred in the 1930s and football eclipsed the national pastime on campus.  Even though AU became a football powerhouse, baseball continued in spirit and returned to campus in club form in the mid-1990s.  The baseball team joined the National Club Baseball Association in the 2010s. In 2021 the Saxons joined the Colonial Baseball Club Association which played its games in the fall.  The Saxons went 0-4 in 2021 season and 1-11 in 2022.