Former 2000 Princeton Rays' catcher Alex Marconi making his mark as a college coach
It's been quite a journey already with many chapters yet to be written for Marconi, 33, who arrived in Princeton in June, 2000 to begin his professional career as a catcher after being selected by Tampa Bay in the 27th round of that year's draft.
"I was absolutely sure that Tampa Bay was going to be the team to pick me as their area scout at that time, Matt Kinzer, had been spending the most time talking to me and saying he was going to push for them to take me," related Marconi as part of a December 13 telephone interview from his office on the Ball State campus in Muncie, IN.
His departure point for Princeton at that time, Kent State University, has been a launching point for several other former Princeton players through the years including Anthony Patellis, Ted Rose, Paul Hoover, and Jason Patton among others.
He certainly found the P-Rays and the Appalachian League to his liking, though his stay was brief. He was immediately installed as the team's starting catcher and the investment was quickly realized as he hit .338 (22-for-65) in only 19 games with ten doubles before being advanced on to Tampa Bay's short-A affiliate, in Hudson Valley, NY. There, he continued his hot hitting for the Renegades with a .291 mark (25-86) in 24 contests.
One thing Marconi can point to is that his first professional manager in 2000 at Princeton, Edwin Rodriguez, went on to manage in the big leagues.
"I absolutely thought Edwin had the ability to manage in the majors. He had a way to be able to connect with each player. He knew who needed a pat on the back and who needed a kick in the butt. Now that I can look back on it, he was the best manager I ever played for at any level," assessed Marconi of Rodriguez, who managed the Florida Marlins in portions of both the 2010 and 2011 MLB seasons.
That 2000 season also was his first chance to get acquainted with Princeton's hitting coach at that time, Jamie Nelson, who later went on to become the franchise's current all-time winningest manager with 141 victories from 2003-2007. Being that Nelson was a former big league catcher with the Seattle Mariners, it was a relationship that did not cease with Marconi's departure from Princeton.
"Nelly was the type of guy that will continue to work with you until you get it right. He stayed on me both in Princeton and in every spring training to follow that I was with the Rays," remembered Marconi, an Akron, OH native.
Marconi's 2000 team at Princeton featured future big leaguers Rocco Baldelli, Edgar Gonzalez, Jeff Ridgway, and Bartolome Fortunato but when asked what player on that team he thought would eventually go to the big leagues but did not, he laughed and exclaimed a one-word answer: "Me!"
Otherwise, when elaborating on his answer to that question, his thoughts centered on right-handed pitcher Chad Coward, who also debuted with Princeton in 2000 and went on to have a very respectable minor league career in the Tampa Bay Rays farm system.
"If not for his arm problems, Chad might have went a long way. He didn't have great velocity but he just got everybody out he faced." said Marconi of Coward, who also was quickly moved to Hudson Valley that year after going 2-1 for the P-Rays with a 2.08 ERA that included 41 strikeouts in 30.1 innings of work. Coward was out of baseball before the 2003 season ever commenced.
The tide also started turning for Marconi in the spring of 2003, when he was released by Tampa Bay after a three-year career in affiliated ball that saw him hit .253 in 109 games advancing as high as one game at AAA Durham. This was followed by one year playing for the independent Elmira Pioneers in the summer of 2003, when he finished in the top in the league in hitting before the coaching bug bit him hard.
"In the Fall of 2004, I accepted a position as a volunteer assistant coach at the University of North Carolina. In my opinion, the large majority of those who get into college head coaching start as a volunteer coach somewhere," is Marconi's belief.
The moved proved to be prophetic as, after only one season (2005) at UNC, he accepted the job of hitting coach at Ball State, where he stayed in that slot until becoming the ninth head baseball coach in the history of Ball State University on July 27, 2010. And, like calling the game as he used to do behind the plate, he is now in the beginning stages of planning and building his own program at BSU following his inheritance of a very young team.
"We (Ball State) struggled as a young team in 2011. On most days, I had five or six freshmen in the lineup and my pitching staff was mostly underclassmen. However, it did present an opportunity last season for a lot of my guys to get their feet wet at once. As a result, we should be much better prepared this spring but even then there will be a few players that will not make the jump quite as quickly," Marconi reviewed of his Cardinals, who are a member of the Mid-American Conference and had a 15-35 overall record last season.
Being a college coach in Muncie, IN, Marconi is certainly well-acquainted with the numbers put up there recently by a highly-touted local youngster who went on to be a catcher for the 2011 Princeton Rays: Justin O'Conner.
"Justin is a great kid and works hard. He is supremely talented and has the tools to be a good player. He's still learning the catching position but certainly already has the arm, athleticism, and power with the bat. When he gets everything figured out, he is going to be an impact player," summed up Marconi.
Hearing him say that about a player shows that Marconi is always the talent evaluator and forecasting. With his determination, aptitude, and planning, an extended long-range level of success for the Ball State University Cardinals baseball team in the Mid-American Conference is probably not far behind.
It certainly gives longtime followers of professional baseball in Princeton the exploits of another college team to follow this spring while waiting for our boys of summer to arrive.
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