Santos making a name with Brewers; Walker signs with St. John’sIt’s been perhaps lost in all the hoopla surrounding Willie Banks’ return home and Chris Lugo’s drafting and signing with the Expos, but another baseball player with local roots is doing quite well these days in the major leagues, namely St. Peter’s College product Victor Santos.
After bouncing around with the Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers, and Colorado Rockies, Santos seems to have found a home with the Milwaukee Brewers. The former Peacock hurler, a native of Passaic, fired a two-hit shutout over seven innings against the Seattle Mariners Tuesday, striking out seven and walking none.
Santos has been a mainstay in the Brewers’ rotation, especially in the month of June, where he has been downright brilliant.
For the season, Santos has a 5-2 record with a 3.50 earned run average, but in June, the righty has a 3-0 record with a 1.50 ERA, including the superb outing against the Mariners last week.
It’s easily the best stretch that Santos has enjoyed in the four years that he’s been in the major leagues. Just goes to show you that when one door closes, another opens. Maybe Santos will remain a solid contributor for the Brewers for many years to come…
However, while there’s good news to report about one local major leaguer, there’s not good news to report about Bayonne’s Joe Borowski, the Chicago Cubs reliever.
Just when it looked like Borowski’s place in the majors was finally secured with a steady position as the Cubs’ closer and a two-year contract under his belt, Borowski suffered a setback last week, when it was learned that he suffered a torn labrum in his right pitching shoulder.
Borowski, who was placed on the disabled list, will try to rehabilitate the injury instead of opting for surgery and will miss 4 to 6 weeks. If he does have surgery, he will miss the remainder of the year and will be a gigantic question mark when the 2005 season begins.
It’s been said that fame is fleeting. No truer words than in Major League Baseball…
One of Victor Santos’ teammates at St. Peter’s College is doing quite well as a college baseball coach, evidenced by the honor he received last week. Former Peacock Brian Callahan, who was a standout during his playing days at Bayonne High School and has been the head baseball coach at New Jersey Institute of Technology for the last three years, was named the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Coach of the Year.
Callahan, one of the youngest coaches in NCAA Division II baseball, has established himself as an up-and-coming star in the coaching ranks. This latest honor just cements his place. Congratulations to Callahan on the award…
Marist girls’ basketball coach Bill DeFazio called to inform me that his former star player, Tara Walker, has signed a national letter of intent to play for St. John’s University in the fall.
Walker, who had been playing at Monroe Community College in upstate New York for the last two seasons, leading Monroe to the National Junior College Division II championship last year, will get the chance to play for someone who followed her high school career closely, namely St. John’s head coach Kim Barnes-Arico, who is a close friend to DeFazio’s wife, Alice, the women’s coach at New Jersey City University.
Walker, the three-time Hudson Reporter Player of the Year during her days at Marist, had been flying under the radar map after finishing her high school career. She originally signed to go to Fordham, but her grades prevented her from going to Rose Hill. She then bounced around some junior colleges, before finally settling in at Monroe two years ago.
“The funny thing is, for the last year or so, whenever I walked into a gym, the first words I heard were, ‘Where’s Tara Walker?’ ” DeFazio said. “I must have heard it over 100 times. ‘What happened to Tara?’ I wanted to make a recording, so I could tell people she was at Monroe. Now, people will know where she is.”
Walker, who finished her career as the No. 2 all-time leading girls’ basketball scorer in Hudson County history with 2,306 points, becomes the first Marist product to move on to Division I basketball.
“It will be good that we can all see her play,” DeFazio said. “It’s a great thing for our program and she did so many great things for Marist. You never let go of the kids you coach. When all the other stuff happened to Tara, we were all devastated. But once she did well at Monroe, we made a few phone calls and the rest is history.”
Walker will become the sixth player who played for DeFazio to play in the Big East Conference, joining former St. Anthony greats Diane Rodriguez (Georgetown), Kim Lee and Kim Jones (Seton Hall), Margaret Grierson (Boston College) and Karen Threatt (Pittsburgh)…
Next week, the Hudson Reporter will honor the best high school athletes in the county with the annual Athlete of the Year presentations. But this year, as something new, the Reporter has decided to select one male and one female as the respective Athletes of the Year.
So make sure you check next week’s editions for the 2003-04 Athletes of the Year in the editions of The Hudson Reporter newspapers… — Jim Hague
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