The Catholic Standard & Times - Sports

It’s often been said that baseball is a game of adjustments — adjusting to a pitcher, adjusting to the strike count, adjusting to a hitter, even adjusting to the inning.

But Mike Costanzo of Archbishop Carroll High School’s class of 2004, a former All-Catholic in baseball, had not counted on adjusting to being traded twice in five weeks in only the third year of his professional baseball career.

Costanzo, 24, was originally a second-round choice of the Philadelphia Phillies in the June 2005 college draft while he was at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina.

Then, on Nov. 7 last year, he was part of a six-player deal that brought closer Brad Lidge to Philadelphia from the Houston Astros.

“It was very shocking at first,” Costanzo said of that first trade.

He didn’t have much time to adjust to the shock — and he never got the chance to play for Houston — because then, on Dec. 12, the Astros sent him with four other players to the Baltimore Orioles in another trade, for shortstop Miguel Tejada.

“The second trade brought me closer to home. It’s the closest to being at Citizens Bank Park — for now,” said the slugging third baseman, who dreams of one day playing the hot corner for the Phillies.

A trade at any level in the game can unsettle a player, but Costanzo has adjusted well.

“It actually built my confidence — being traded twice for guys like Lidge and Tejada,” he said recently, just before one of his daily off-season workouts at the Crozer-Keystone Healthplex Sports Club in Springfield, Delaware County.

P.J. Forbes, Costanzo’s manager last year with the Reading Phillies — the team’s minor league club in the Double A Eastern League — said he’s excited about Costanzo’s future with the Orioles, a team that has begun a major rebuilding program.

“I’m going to miss him,” Forbes said. “Mike has a great mentality and knows how to roll with the punches. He’s not letting it [the trades] affect him. He sees a great opportunity in front of him.”

There’s a certain amount of self-discipline and sensitivity that keeps Costanzo on track, and he credits his teachers and coaches at Archbishop Carroll in Radnor for instilling those qualities in him.

His routine at the healthplex is focused on building up strength in his lower body and includes leg presses, squats, a series of agilities, and yoga sessions four days a week. He says that yoga helps him stay mentally focused on his core strength program. “Being focused physically and mentally is huge in baseball,” he said.

Costanzo won’t stand for using drugs like steroids or human growth hormone to enhance player performance. “I think they’re bad for the game,” he said. “It’s unfair that players doing it are getting an edge.”

He stiffened and shook his head when asked if he would ever consider using a drug in a situation where he would be coming off an injury to get him back on the field that much sooner. “It’s not worth it,” he said unequivocally. “I don’t want to take a year off my life.

“I have a very strong faith and belief in God,” said the Carroll alumnus, who grew up in St. Kevin Parish just down the street from the healthplex.

For every ball game, for instance, he observes a spiritual ritual that involves his deceased grandfather, Pasquale Costanzo, whose funeral Mass card he keeps in his cap.

Before the young Costanzo goes out on the field, he takes the Mass card out, and reads it. “It gets me focused,” he said. “It brings into my life strength for the next game. I know he’ll be there.”

Costanzo also has the name of one of his best friends inscribed on all of his bats, as a personal memorial and further motivation to keep focused. That friend, Dominic D’Alicandro, died in a motorcycle accident Oct. 13, 2006.

“I’m praying for my grandfather, my buddy — and just about reaching Camden Yards,” he said, referring to the home field of the Orioles.

Right after the 2005 college draft, Costanzo began his baseball career with the Batavia Muckdogs, Philadelphia’s rookie minor league team at the time, in the short-season New York-Penn League. He hit .274 in 73 games with 11 home runs and 50 RBI. In 2006, he was moved up to the Class A Clearwater Threshers of the Florida State League, and continued to impress the brass back in Philadelphia, hitting 33 doubles, 14 home runs and driving in 81 runs.

Then, last year in Reading, Costanzo demonstrated that he could adjust to a higher level of play. After hitting .240 during the first half of the season, and striking out 112 times, Mike roared through the second half, hitting .324 and striking out only 45 times to wind up with a .270 average, 27 home runs and 86 RBI for the R-Phils.

The left-handed slugger’s 27 home runs were the second best in the Double A Eastern League. He hit number 1 on April 7 in Reading, on a frigid opening night against Harrisburg, on the second pitch he ever saw in the league. He hit number 27 on Sept. 27, on the last day of the season in Harrisburg. Both were shots to left center field, and carried well over the fences, 375 feet away.

Costanzo has already been invited to Baltimore’s major league spring training camp this year in Fort Lauderdale. But he realizes there is no guarantee he will be on the Orioles’ opening day roster for 2008.

He also knows what he has to do to make the jump from Double A to the American League: hard work, and lots of it.

Before he arrives each day at the healthplex for his workouts, he has already been to the All-Star Baseball Academy in West Chester, where he has hitting, throwing and fielding practice. His work at both facilities is part of a year-round routine that he sticks to, like pine tar to a bat handle. Later in the day, he goes out for what he calls “a little run” of two miles after dinner.

That was his routine last season, which also included batting practice with Reading hitting coach and former Philadelphia Phillie Greg Gross, and taking ground balls from Forbes during fielding practice.

“He went through a lot in spring training,” recalled Forbes. “We started him on a flex program that changed a lot of things in his body.”

“They basically put me on a table and stretched me like a pretzel,” laughed Costanzo.

The rigors of pro baseball have also stretched Costanzo professionally, according to Gross: “Any time you spend a lot of time with somebody, and see the results, and the stretch like Mike had, it’s fun to watch.”

Gross turned out to be Costanzo’s hitting coach at Batavia, Clearwater, and Reading — which afforded him a front-row seat through the ballplayer’s development so far. “I think he was looking at the opportunity of playing before his home town,” Gross added. “I think that weighed on him a little bit.”

Costanzo, like most young ballplayers today, has to deal with the pressure of a generation that wants immediate gratification, Gross said.
The difference, for Costanzo, is that he has an ability to put a bad game behind him, Gross continued. And even more important, Costanzo has gotten better at shrugging off a bad play or a bad at-bat in a game.

Said Forbes: “He showed us what he was all about. He always did his work for every game. He never gave less than 100 percent … [and] he’s going to get better.”

Meanwhile, Costanzo’s mother and father, Sandra and Mike Sr., can count on one hand the number of games they missed while Mike was growing up in the Springfield area — and again, last year in Reading.

“We have an unbelievable relationship,” Costanzo said of his family. “They’re my best friends.”

That also includes his sister, Ashley Costanzo, 22, a technician in the neurophysiology department at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “She keeps me on ground level,” Costanzo said.

That Costanzo is a gamer comes across in a number of ways, Forbes concluded: “You can tell people are drawn to him and want to be around him. He infects other people with that quality of exuberance you have to have about you to play the game and have fun with it.”

Fran Odyniec has covered the Reading Phillies for the last five years for a local newspaper in Morgantown, Pa. He grew up in Resurrection of Our Lord parish in Northeast Philadelphia.

Conwell-Egan grad keeps hopes high for NFL draft

Sports Columnist
By John knebels

When Steve Slaton was running wild as a member of Conwell-Egan’s football team before he graduated in 2005, the possibility of a future professional career seemed a long shot at best.

Not that he wasn’t dominant, because he was. Former defensive players from Catholic League Blue Division teams might still have bruised forearms and slightly sprained ankles from trying to wrestle down the elusive running back — that is, if they could catch him before he reached the end zone.

But the realistic odds of someday donning the jersey and helmet of a team in the National Football League is a stretch, at best, for most scholastic athletes, no matter how well they measure up locally.

Then came college for Slaton, and things began to change.

At the University of West Virginia, he seized his collegiate opportunity in his freshman year. En route to running for 3,923 yards and 55 touchdowns during his outstanding career, Slaton became a rather common sight on television sports channels such as ESPN.

Earlier this week, Slaton announced that he will be forgoing his senior year. He labeled it “a very tough decision.” He waxed eloquent when he cited how much West Virginia has provided for him personally, both in football and in life. He was adamant that his decision was not about “giving up” on his college. Rather, he said, it was a decision based on the fact that right now leaving school appears to be the most logical course of action regarding his football career.

“I have loved being at West Virginia,” he said. “It made me what I am, and you never forget the people that started you on your way.”

Exactly where he ends up on Draft Day is anyone’s guess, but looking at the crop of running backs available, it would be surprising if he lasts anywhere past the second round. A long look at some of his runs in college must have NFL scouts salivating if their teams possess little depth in the backfield.

Slaton and his blazing speed have always teamed up to push him past obstacles, and this should be no different. Compared by at least two scouts to New Orleans Saints star Reggie Bush, Slaton always seems to make the right moves both on and off the field.

A case in point is how he handled announcing his decision to forego his senior year of college. Before going public, he contacted new WVU coach Bill Stewart, to explain his decision. In the current days of “me-me first,” it was a classy thing to do, and Stewart appreciated it.

“I believe every student athlete, male or female, should pursue, exhaust and complete their eligibility and academic requirements for graduation at their institution,” said Stewart. “With that being said, if someone can be financially secure with a large signing bonus, I understand that decision.

“The average career of an NFL player is approximately 3.2 years,” Steward added, “so you better get all you can in your signing bonus. I support [his decision] 100 percent.”

For Slaton, seeking out Stewart before going public was the first intangible touchdown of his NFL career.

John Knebels may be reached at jknebs@aol.com.