The Last Night of College Baseball
The Last Night of College Baseball
Scott Palmieri
It’s the ninth inning, and I am sitting on the visitor’s bench at Florida State University, cheers falling through the dugout roof and echoing around Dick Howser Stadium. The game is 14-3, not at all close. We are Providence College, about to lose in the Regional finals to the host team. It is May 1999. When this inning is over, the game will end, our season will end, and our 78-year-old program will no longer exist.
Amidst this noise, I am sobbing in my hands while our players lean forward on the top step of the dugout. This loss is, of course, expected. It’s Florida State, for goodness sakes. It’s Providence College. We have about half the scholarships. We play in the unforgiving New England cold, and most days the stands are dotted with family and a few friends. Our entire student body couldn’t fill this small stadium.
As students, we were required to take two years of Western Civilization. In a darkened lecture hall, my professor clicked through slides of ancient Greece and Rome ruins while a lamenting Satie piano piece played. We viewed the ragged, resilient archways, columns, and empty spaces, lessons of triumph and failure, that even the grandest civilizations pass. Why wouldn’t a small college’s baseball program, too?
As FSU nears victory, leading the cheers are the Animals, an army of diehard baseball fanatics, infamous in ACC battles against such powerhouses as Clemson and North Carolina, in their own self-designated Section B. I know of them through two of my brothers, both of whom played at Wake Forest University, and of the faithful’s relentless loyalty and unique rituals when their beloved Seminoles stomp on opposing teams. Armed with a book of over 60 songs, the Animals gleefully sing their own creations or take creative license with others, for example, “Take Me Out of the Ballgame” to struggling opposing pitchers. The most famous tradition is “O Canada,” sung in every fifth inning, born in 1988 during a game that coincided with the Winter Olympics, when one fan’s humming of the Canadian national anthem spread to the entire section while the Seminoles rallied to an eventual win.
Our first batter in the ninth inning is announced. The crowd keeps getting louder.
***
I’ve wanted to return to this night for years. Charlie Hickey (“Hick”), the head coach in our program’s final season, joked back in ‘99 that I would write the book, though it was Don Lonardo a few years later who penned Strike IX, detailing many of the events of the last year. Then in 2021, PC student Thomas Zinzarella, a sports media major, created a short documentary, an impressive senior project titled The Final At-Bat, which can be found on YouTube.
“This comes around every few years or so,” said Hick, his gravelly voice and natural grin coming through the phone in a recent call. This, he means, is the story of the 1999 Providence College baseball team. My impulse to return aligns me again with Western Civ, where on the first day, the professor drew a circle on the chalkboard, telling us that history is not a straight line drifting to an endpoint but a circle, a series of circles, events bending in similar ways with similar lessons and stories worth retelling. This night in Tallahassee keeps circling back for me and those who were there. Maybe there is more to say. Maybe I can follow the spirit of the only other eyewitness account, which came from Drew Hankin, who served as Zookeeper, the head of the Animals, who wrote:
“To put into words all that went on Sunday night in the Florida State victory over Providence College would do a great disservice to all who were there. But I will try.”
***
As the ninth inning begins, it is difficult to find hope.
But sports teach us that anything is possible. Miracle comebacks bring us back season after season, though overcoming 14-3 in the ninth would be quite the ask of the baseball gods. Back in the third inning, down 2-0, we put two runs on the board, thanks to a double by outfielder Keith Reed, who would be drafted by the Orioles in a couple weeks. At the end of the fifth, it was a 5-2 ball game, with a chance to somehow pull it out. In the ninth, for this team that has fought all year, we hope for just a modest rally, one last burst of grit to give us a few more minutes before it’s all gone. And why not? Just to get to this game was somewhat of a baseball miracle.
In the afternoon semifinal against Jacksonville University, down 7-1 early, things looked grim. Our fan contingent of family and friends, though loud and proud, was dwarfed by Jacksonville, whose campus is just a two-and-a-half-hour drive away. Our anger-fueled players kept the fight, almost literally when, after a Jacksonville player spewed some trash talk after getting hit by a pitch, first baseman and future Angels draftee Mike O’Keefe, tossed down his glove and beckoned the hitter and the entire Jacksonville dugout.
Inspired by their in-state rivalry and appreciative of our fiery team, the Animals in attendance started migrating from their first base side perch. Two of my former teammates, Mike Harrington and Ryan Ricciardi, who had flown down to Tallahassee, would remember well what was happening. Recently, when I texted Mike, my four-year roommate at PC, about what comes to mind most about that day, the first thing he wrote was: “The Animals. They left Section B and came to our side.”
In the middle innings, we chipped away and then rallied for three to tie it in the eighth, though the deadlock was promptly broken in the top of the ninth with a Jacksonville pinch-hit home run. In the bottom of the ninth, down one and down to our last out, a heavy sense of finality dropped upon us. We were now on the brink.
But sophomore center fielder Mike Scott, an All-American who would finish his college career with two storied seasons at the University of Connecticut, drilled a triple to right-center, driving in the tying run. The PC families went berserk, as did the Animals, in their sudden unexpected fandom, taking great joy in the comeback, giving our side’s cheers an added punch. In the tenth, with the game still tied, I was standing at the top of the dugout next to senior pitcher Marc DesRoches, who, when the count went to 2-0 on standout freshman Neal McCarthy, turned to me and said the next pitch was going out. It did. Joyous screams of disbelief burst from our crowd, combusting with the raucous Animals. The players galloped to a throbbing mob at home plate, as McCarthy, who was bound for Boston College, turned third, taking a casual handshake from Hick before being swallowed up in the bedlam.
But here in the night game’s last inning, we know there will be no comeback. FSU is securely in the lead, and the Animals are securely in their Section B, envisioning the imminent Super Regional next round against Auburn. Sometimes we are reminded that anything is not always possible. The first out of the inning comes with a strikeout.
***
In October of 1998, a Title IX decision came down from Providence College’s President Father Smith to put the school in compliance after years of failing to balance athletic opportunities, choosing cuts over adding women’s programs, unthinkable if you walk the campus today, with its state-of-the-art athletic facilities. The team could have died that fall, the underclassmen contemplating their options. If too many transferred, they couldn’t field a team. The upperclassmen were inclined to stay no matter what. Juniors such as Coley O’Donnell were already halfway through their degrees and seniors such as Angelo Ciminello, Paul Costello, and Rob Corraro were past the point of no return, just months from graduating. But only three players transferred. They would play one more season.
Perhaps the best symbol of the team’s resolve came in the form of a t-shirt, borrowing the words of Tom Berenger’s character in the film Major League: “I guess there’s only one thing to do . . . Win the whole f-ing thing” with the distance between f and ing filled with asterisks, exclamation points, and hashtags. Anger powered them through the season, their plight used as fuel, as they relentlessly heckled opposing pitchers and hexed opposing hitters by “charging,” when, with two strikes in the PC pitcher’s favor, everyone in the dugout would rub the right side of their caps before extending them toward the mound. When you’re young and you feel something being taken away, anger is the longest phase of grief.
By then, I was two years out of PC. I sat on an alumni committee that tried to save the program, and I attended every home game I could. As the season progressed, efforts to stave off elimination went nowhere, though the story was picked up by a few major media outlets- The New York Times, The Boston Globe, among others. The modest attention grew with the team’s successful regular season, which landed them in the Big East Tournament in Trenton, New Jersey. A few days before that, Hick asked if I wanted to step in for one of the assistant coaches who left for an independent league tryout. I accepted, overwhelmed with gratitude. Suddenly, I had a tiny role in this unfolding story, which peaked when we survived the losers’ bracket and advanced to the championship game against St. John’s University.
In that ninth inning, in Trenton, I was leaning on the top step at the end of the long line of Friars, the dugout players charging up, with two outs, up 6-1 and DesRoches on the mound. When I was his teammate, he had to wait out a staff of upperclassman pitchers. In ‘99, he won more games than any pitcher in PC history, and, after winning a game earlier in the tournament, took the ball again. On the edge of a complete game, he summoned one more fastball, which was chopped to shortstop Jamie Athas, who, with catcher Dan Conway, would be off to Wake Forest the next fall. Athas fielded and threw it cleanly to first, springing from the dugout the players who crashed together near the pitcher’s mound, the year-long anger replaced with jubilation.
They had done the unthinkable and also extended the program for at least two games, with an automatic bid into the double-elimination NCAA Regional round. I stood among the blissful team, knowing I was part and not part of it, in awe of their accomplishment, with the weight of two facts: they were champions and it was still almost all over.
***
With only two outs left in Tallahassee, I am trying to take this all in, my second time experiencing a last game. My finale as a player was on our home field, when I wept at the thought that I would never don this outfit again. It was the end of a disappointing season, and in our last couple of weeks, as a co-captain, I tried to toughen us up, to demand more. We improved but not enough, and instead of ending with gratitude, I was angry, realizing too late that I was mired in the longest phase of grief. I had forgotten the circles of Western Civ, the cyclical rises and falls. I wish I could take back every scowl, every frustrating bark.
But for two weeks, thanks to Hick, I have another chance. I float in this brief wonder of returning. I throw some batting practice, cheer from the dugout, and help in any way I can, grateful for all that was packed into my four years. All the life lived with teammates: the bus rides, the mercurial coaches, the fleeting romances, the Western Civ exams, the cafeteria meals, the boredom, the angst, the laughter, the nights of drinking too late, and the mornings that came too soon, all threaded with lifelong stories. I have been given this second chance to take one last look.
As our second batter leaves the on-deck circle, we hear a booming call from the stands above us: “Hey, Friars, this is for you!” The Animals. Here it comes. Not unexpected, of course. They had behaved long enough, kind to root while we vanquished Jacksonville and kind to wait this long to unleash some well-deserved glee. In the spirit of the warrior chop and Canadian national anthem, it is time for the faithful to have their fun, two outs and two wins away from Omaha.
In this brief space between batters, the Animals start “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
But they don’t change the words this time, or at least they don’t until, “Root, root, root for the Friars, if they don’t win it’s a shame!” spinning us from sorrow to the sublime. With the last note of the song, the crowd erupts, its loudest outburst of the night.
The Animals chant: “Friars! Friars!”
Our players step up from the shadowed dugout to see the full crowd, which keeps chanting. The boys lift their caps. All of this is really happening.
Everyone is cheering for us.
***
When we recently rehashed Tallahassee, Hick’s recollections echoed those I’ve heard before. That night is frozen for him now, having gone on to a remarkable career at Central Connecticut University, with nine appearances in the NCAA tournament. His over 26 years there dwarf the eight at PC.
I asked him about the landscape of college baseball, thinking of my high school sophomore son. In my era, to be a part of a team for four years was the ultimate goal, not easy but comparatively simpler than today. The professionalization of amateur sports had barely started. Travel baseball existed, but it hadn’t yet chewed up Little League and Legion. No chaos of the transfer portal. No NIL. If you were lucky enough to make it, you didn’t have one foot out the door.
Today, if Hick needs an infielder, he can find a 22-year-old somewhere with college experience. But in the fall of 1992, as the head assistant coach at the time, Hick was in the market for a second baseman and, at a showcase in New Jersey, he happened to see me make a few plays and enough contact at the plate. Within a month, I signed, a dream realized, to play Big East baseball for a proud program. The head coach then was Paul Kostacopoulos (“Kosty”), who amassed over 1000 wins in a storied career, across PC, Maine, and Navy. We walked in fear of Kosty most days, especially our freshman year, which followed a down season from a team that went from Big East champions in ‘92, with Friar legends such as Jimmy Foster and future Red Sox infielder Lou Merloni, to not qualifying for the postseason in ‘93.
Down years are inevitable for small programs, though Kosty’s bitter taste of losing led to a punishing fall season, as he broke in an army of freshmen in the form of long daily practices with relentless drills and then, later, soul-testing winter training, when we trudged in the cold and darkness to the weight room. One day, as our arms trembled in a marathon of team pushups, Kosty screamed, “This isn’t difficult! Pushups aren’t difficult! Being up to bat with two outs in the ninth with the game on the line- that’s difficult!”
We survived it all and were rewarded by a few years of great success, including our own trip to the NCAA tournament. From my second base position, around me was a field nearly full of future pros: Scott Friedholm behind the plate, Todd Incantalupo on the mound, first-round outfielder Pete Tucci, and shortstop John MacDonald, who played 15 years in the Majors. The program was one of the best in the region, and the notion of its demise would have seemed ridiculous.
Along with Hick and Kosty, the other constant those years was our head trainer, John Rock, who remained our last and close campus contact for years. He would help organize reunions, on golf courses or at our old local haunt, Brad’s, a wood-paneled bar that, over the years, has barely changed. When we would visit him, we would see a small baseball shrine in his office, including a bumper sticker, printed in the program’s last year, “Save PC Baseball.”
***
The second out in Tallahassee is a routine grounder. Despite all this noise, another quiet out.
And now here we are. After 78 years, this could be it, the last batter ever announced. His name is Brendan Trainor, a freshman who bears my old number five. The ovation from the crowd, the PC families, the FSU families, and the FSU fans (the Animals, especially) crescendos. There is no way to prove this, but it is the loudest ovation any PC baseball team has ever received.
The last out in Providence College baseball history is quick, a three-pitch strikeout. We watch as the Seminoles meet in the middle of the field to congratulate each other with measured smiles and larger goals ahead of them. We plod from the dugout and assemble at home plate for the customary handshake. With each exchange, the gracious FSU players lean in a little more to recognize the moment, and as we curl back to the dugout, they scatter but remain on the field, applauding in our direction, as our players and coaches, in tears, embrace each other, swaying in grief, tucking faces into each other’s shoulders. The crowd’s ovation climbs one last time, finishing with the teary team’s last lift of their caps, as the left field scoreboard is lit up with “Thanks for the Memories, Providence Friars.”
We gather our gear and baseball bags and funnel out of the stadium through an open gate, a line of FSU fans awaiting, tossing out well wishes and “come play for us” messages. In the mingling crowd, an invitation emerges from the Animals to join them across the street at their Circus lot, a gathering spot for pregame and postgame tailgates. Zookeeper Hankin will write that they never thought the Friars would appear, but “after about ten minutes at the tailgating party, we looked over towards Howser [Stadium] and saw the ENTIRE Providence baseball team and coaching staff headed our way.” With only a few distant parking lot lights, we see, in the shadows, welcoming arms raised, the Animals thrilled to see us.
Very few will remember many details, but there is a lot of drinking and a lot of pizza. One of the Animals, Rob Van Eck, admitted, in Zinzarella’s documentary, his worry about serving Tallahassee pizza to northeasterners. There is laughter, playful wrestling among the players, smiling conversations, and photos taken. Assistant trainer Alan Segee will remember one of the Animals on a car phone leaving a saucy message on PC’s athletic director’s voicemail. I don’t want the night to end, the sadness numbed by the beer and the warmth of these strangers. For a moment, we can just be here, before different paths unfold, including those of juniors Jeremy Sweet and Jason Hairston, who will play their last year of eligibility at Bryant University, where I will end up, too, coaching first base, just a few towns over from Providence.
As the end of the night nears, a few players swap their jerseys for Animals T-shirts, which read “We are the Y2K Problem.” Brendan Trainor gives me his pinstripe number 5. My roommate Mike is given his number 10. The party ends, we board the bus, and the players shout out the window the “N-O-L-E-S” chant that the Animals taught them, as the bus slowly twirls away, bringing us back to the hotel. Hankin will write, “I’ve seen a lot of things during my time in the Animals, but I have never, ever been prouder than I was last night to be a member.”
***
In May 2025, twenty former baseball players gathered on our old campus to celebrate John Rock’s retirement. After the baseball team dissolved, he rose in the ranks from head trainer to associate athletic director, leaving the school after 38 years. At the retirement ceremony, along with the many thank-yous he gave, he especially thanked the Ghosts of PC Baseball, many of whom kept in close contact with Rock when his health, now restored, had taken a turn for the worse. When he cleared out his office, one of the last things that Rock found was Hankin’s article. For years, on the Animals’ SectionB.com, the site now disappeared, there was a black ribbon imprinted with “In Memoriam: PC Baseball, 1921-1999” that, when clicked, brought you to his story and a lamenting trumpet version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
As Rock’s ceremony wound down and the speeches gave way to coolers of beer, a bunch of us drifted to the site of our old field. It was like walking through your old neighborhood and finding your childhood home razed to the ground, no ancient ruins but a turf field encircled by a well-kept running track. We tried to find our old positions, but with no foul poles or dugouts, we could only use as markers the bordering maple trees and neighborhood houses. As we wandered, DesRoches and fellow pitchers Todd Murray and Doug Wall looked for the vanished pitcher’s mound. My roommate Mike drifted behind me to the phantom right field while Bryan Tamul and Mike Lyons, both center fielders, tossed an invisible ball to each other, lining themselves up with the stately Harkins Hall, which used to overlook their position.
As I settled upon my best guess for my second baseman space, I didn’t think of big games but an unexceptional fall practice my sophomore year, a late afternoon when the light was starting to fade, warm enough to make us wish that baseball was a fall sport. As others gathered up their equipment, Hick slapped me extra ground balls, moving me left and right to slide or dive, smiling as he told me to “practice great plays.” Somewhere between the grounders, I felt an overwhelming sense of home. After a daunting freshman year, I was at ease, knowing my way around and knowing I still had plenty of time, I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Hick’s more recent words, “I thought I would be in Rhode Island the rest of my life,” could have cast us to an alternative history with the old field still here, Hick in the third base coach’s box and my children and I in the stands, the place where their father played on the campus where their parents met.
The bunch of us made the short walk over to Brad’s. On one of its walls was the last home plate signed by the 1999 team, encased in glass, along with a team photo. We continued to catch up and laugh, then talk about teammates who had fallen on hard times. Now it was Coach Kosty’s words that hovered. All those pushups weren’t difficult, nor was any suffering that baseball gave us, and perhaps, despite our broken hearts, even the loss of our team in comparison to what life can bring. For the education and for the team that we cherished, we were the lucky ones. Then we were blessed once more when Hick and the ‘99 boys finished as champions. And I can’t help but think that we were spared to not watch our small program struggle to survive the unbridled and unsettling reality of today’s Division I sports. For my fellow PC Ghosts, many of us in our middle innings, there is still enough time to shape our circles, practice great plays, reunite and tell stories, still enough time to remember the kindness of the Animals, who helped us believe again that anything is possible.
Scott Palmieri is a professor of English at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island. His writing has been published in Sport Literate, Aethlon, Hobart, The Twin Bill, The Under Review, The Alembic, and The Result Is What You See Today: Poems About Running. He played baseball at Providence College and continues his love of the sport through writing, coaching, and playing, as long as his legs will allow, in a senior men’s league.
Mark Mosley is a public school 7th grade math teacher. He draws baseball cards when he is not driving his son to baseball or his daughter to gymnastics. His cards can be seen on Twitter @mosley_mark, on Instagram @idrawbaseballcards, and can be purchased at https://idrawbaseballcards.bigcartel.com/
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