My youngest son is a NJIT grad from the Honors program.
OT: NJIT
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Pasted exclusively for Southern (since it's behind a paywall and the guy from AR shouldn't have to pay)
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No field, no problem: How an N.J. college baseball team made the NCAAs without its own ballpark | Politi
By Steve Politi | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
Robbie McClellan has plenty to show NJIT baseball recruits when they visit the university’s campus in Newark. He can take them to a world-class engineering program and business school. He can showcase a modern campus just minutes from all that Manhattan has to offer.
But if those recruits ask the head coach to see where the Highlanders actually play their games, well, that’s where things get a bit challenging.
Piece of cake! Just make a right on Route 21, walk about six miles past Newark Airport until you cross into the next county, and then ...
NJIT doesn’t have a baseball field. It played its home games this season at Kean University, a 20-minute bus drive away, and even that was an improvement from last season. That’s when the Highlanders schlepped to Sussex County to play at Skylands Park, a minor-league stadium that’s so far away they had to stay in a hotel for their own home stands.
“And it definitely wasn’t the Ritz Carlton,” catcher Paul Franzoni said.
In the ultra competitive world of Division I athletics where high school recruits often choose facilities over academics, NJIT didn’t couldn’t offer the most basic requirement for a baseball team. That didn’t stop some of New Jersey’s top players from signing up.
That didn’t stop the Highlanders from becoming one of college baseball’s best stories this spring. They overcame their home-field disadvantage, storming through their last nine games to win the America East Conference and qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
“One thing our program prides itself on is being to deal with anything,” said Franzoni, a senior from Robbinsville. “We were joking the other night, there’s no way there’s another team in this tournament that doesn’t have its own home field.”
The team it will play in its first postseason game as a Division I program certainly does. NJIT will travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas, this week to face the top-ranked Razorbacks, who are 46-10 this season and play in “the model ballpark in college baseball.” That was how Baseball America described Baum-Walker Stadium in 2018 when it ranked Arkansas’ home No. 1 in the sport.
NJIT hasn’t played in front of more than a handful of fans all season thanks to COVID-19, but on Friday afternoon, it will have 11,000 woo-pig-sooie-yelling crazies cheering against them in a ballpark good enough to host a Triple-A team. Only the most experienced NJIT players like Franzoni will remember how that feels.
Until 2018, the Highlanders had a home field like that. They played in Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium in downtown Newark, a $30-million ballpark with 6,200 seats that was supposed to be the center of an urban renewal for the corner of the city.
Remember the Bears? Rickey Henderson played for them. So did Jose Canseco, for a brief spell. Tim Raines, a future Hall-of-Fame outfielder, managed them for three years. All of the big names, however, never attracted the big crowds to Newark as expected, and a series of lawsuits, crooked owners and crippling debt led the Bears to fold in 2014.
Even the team’s 56-seat bus was auctioned off to pay the bills. That was bad news for the city. But for NJIT, it was an opportunity. The team became the primary occupants of a professional stadium just a mile-and-a-half from its campus, one that had a view of the New York skyline from home plate. Who could ask for anything better?
“We felt like it was our little piece of Newark,” Franzoni said. “We loved playing there so it was devastating losing it.”
NJIT lost it when the stadium was razed after its sake to a New York developer for $23.5 million, with grand plans to turn the land into a mixed-use development with 2.3 million square feet of residential, office, retail and cultural space.
Sounds great, right?
Yeah. Never happened.
“The deal fell through, so they knocked down a beautiful baseball stadium for nothing,” McClellan said. “Sometimes, when we come back from away games, we’ll drive right past it. It’s kind of sad. It’s just a big plot of land that isn’t being used for anything.
Updated plans were unveiled last month for the land, with a new developer and a new promise to “transform the city,” and maybe this time it’ll actually happen. For now, though, a baseball stadium is gone, and in its place sits another vacant lot in a city with too many of them.
NJIT couldn’t control that. So much of the university’s transition to Division I sports over the past dozen years -- from its 51-game basketball losing streak to its decision to join the Great West Conference with road trips to North Dakota and Utah -- wasn’t exactly smooth, to put it mildly.
But now the university’s teams have found a home in the America East, a league that makes sense culturally and geographically. The Highlanders might not have a baseball field, but they have a team with a trio of major-league draft prospects and the attitude that nothing can phase them.
“No one is scared of Arkansas,” Franzoni said.
The Highlanders have a pair of stars in twin brothers David and Julio Marcano, an electric centerfielder in sophomore Albert Choi and one of the nation’s top closers in lefty Jake Rappaport. More importantly, at this point in their long, strange journey as a baseball team, they’re pretty much unflappable regardless of the surroundings.
When you’re used to hitting the road every time you play at home, why would another few hundred miles faze them?
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.
Steve Politi may be reached at [email protected].
Congratulations to the New Jersey Institute of Technology Highlanders!
i want to welcome you and your fans to Fayetteville Arkansas this week. you will be playing in front of a crowd of 13,000+
at Baum-Walker stadium.
i want to welcome you and your fans to Fayetteville Arkansas this week. you will be playing in front of a crowd of 13,000+
at Baum-Walker stadium.
Thankyou for posting this info for me. I appreciate the effort!
SG, you have me in a pickle. Outside of Princeton and Seton Hall, I always root for New Jersey colleges. But you have turned me and this board into Yankee Razorback fans. I even have my Arkansas magnet and can do the piggy chant just like I was from Conway, Pine Bluff, Bentonville, etc. lol
LOL. I appreciate the support! Feel free of course to support NJIT this week. I am happy that they earned an invitation to the NCAA tournament. I doubt that they beat Arkansas, but you never know.
Given how both Rutgers fans and Razorback fans have long suffered, I feel that we are often kindred souls in support of our teams. I can be both a Razorback and a Scarlet Knight. And I appreciate your support. I fly my Rutgers flag next to my Razorback flag overlooking my deck.
Now, if only I can prevent you from saying “piggy chant” instead of “calling the Hogs” my mission in life would be complete!
That was what I left unsaid about the shared engineering school thing. I'd imagine that FA&M.. probably a mens college.. oh, that's right an HBC.. was where they stuck engineering because, ya know, chicks and math. Oh wait.. its worse than that.. it was only formed in 1982 and, I assume, neither school had an engineering school at that time. So women and blacks were denied opportunities at these two colleges.
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Maybe, though I have no idea if FAMU was ever a men's only college. It is still to this day a HBCU with land grant designation.
I updated my post when I thought of their band... yes HBCU.. so it was in 1982 that the engineering school formed.. which, I suppose, meant neither a school first formed for women nor the one formed for blacks.. had engineering until then.
NJIT has really improved its campus and academic programs. It is a very good university with a good reputation. That being said, elite would be an overstatement. NJIT constantly ranks a top school for return on investment. The tuition is pretty low and engineering grads make more money faster than most other professions.
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SG, I just checked with the Arkansas State board and they told me I should stick with the term piggy chant. Maybe I should check in on the Central Arkansas board and find out their opinion about this.
I imagine the folks at the Arkansas State Red Wolves would support your idea of a piggy chant. And those at the university of Central Arkansas would suggest the same. thing.
But a Hog fan only says “calling the Hogs”!
Attended NJIT in the mid 80’s before transferring to RU. Took the subway from Newark’s Penn Station. Really sketchy to walk from Penn Station but subway was frightening too. Eventually bought a beater of a car which of course broke down in really bad areas. This was before cell phones - don’t know how I didn’t get mugged.
Maybe things were better in the nineties but I spent most of the decade at RU/N and never had a problem with the walk from Penn Station or on the subway.
I miss riding those old school 1950s Newark Subway cars (that you had to open the windows to get some air) on my way to Paterson back in the day. They were cool to ride.
They originally came from Minneapolis in the late 40’s iirc.
They are Presidential Commission Cars (PCCs for short). They are actually trolleys and we’re part of a huge trolley network owned by Public Service.
correction: Presidents Conference Commission (built in the 1930’s)
I remember seeing the Newark trolley cars as well when I was a student at Rutgers .
Here's another one for you Southern (much of the same general info)
https://nypost.com/2021/06/03/njit-baseball-living-the-dream-of-ncaa-tournament-berth/
Watch the game here:
NJIT vs. #1 Arkansas (Site 1 / Game 1) (NCAA Baseball Championship) | Watch ESPN
https://www.espn.com/watch/player?id=f97704e3-0481-4ab9-ae3f-3819f05c7e9a
NJIT vs. #1 Arkansas (Site 1 / Game 1) (NCAA Baseball Championship) | Watch ESPN
https://www.espn.com/watch/player?id=f97704e3-0481-4ab9-ae3f-3819f05c7e9a
That makes perfect sense even if the facilities were 2 blocks away in Newark. It's for the safety of the teams.
In my years on the Rutgers campus in Newark, never had any trouble to me or my car. I think the only funny thing was some guy tried to get me to buy a watch, but nothing happened. Both the NJIT and Rutgers campuses are much bigger now with thousands of kids living in dorms, including the just completed Honors College on the Newark Campus. Almost no city residents there, just one big campus, comprised of the two universities.
NJIT putting up a great effort against the #1 team in USA..Trail 12-8 mid 8th
Just saw where Rider made the Tournament..Looking forward to watching that game at 7pm...My friends kid plays for the Broncs
Arkansas 13
NJIT. 8
great game by NJIT!
NJIT certainly deserved a spot in the tournament and proved that once again today. Great pitching(who throws that many strikes?) and solid defense.
NJIT is going places!
Go Hogs!
NJIT. 8
great game by NJIT!
NJIT certainly deserved a spot in the tournament and proved that once again today. Great pitching(who throws that many strikes?) and solid defense.
NJIT is going places!
Go Hogs!
Imagine how NJIT would be if they had their own stadium? Too bad there’s no room in their area to build one.
Great game by both.
"Charleys" (pronounced "cholleys")
Newark was once a fantastic city... had everything. That's more than 50 years ago now. Sad.
Go NJIT. Congrats to Arky.
Go NJIT. Congrats to Arky.
I remember when I was really little my mom and I taking the #11 bus at Christmas time to see Santa at Bamberger's. It was like going to another world.
Many memories of riding the NJT bus #11 over the years.
Bamberger's in downtown Newark was massive and quite the experience. For little kids like my brother and I back then it rivaled the Macy's in midtown Manhattan.
I was a little kid during the riots.. 67 was it? A neighbor had worked at Bambergers and was crying.
"Burn, Baby, Burn" - H Rap Brown
Bambergers of all things makes its way into a thread about NJIT playing baseball against Arkansas in the NCAA playoffs!
Who woulda thunk.
Who woulda thunk.
You can see Newark’s Bravest in the beginning of the above video.
Marine veteran and father of seven.
I always find it amazing how one thought leads to another to another to another.
I run circles around my self in my own mind several times a day. How about you?
The Rutgers-Newark baseball team played on campus years ago, but I think that is only used for soccer now with AstroTurf. The Scarlet Raiders now play at Weequahic Park, which also has AstroTurf. Wonder why NJIT and Rutgers don’t work their schedules out so both teams can play there. Same driving distance for both schools.
Hoq, Rutgers uses Douglass field for softball and soccer—