Calzone Ciarcia: not your typical baseball player

There are very few places on the east coast that have winters as ruthless as Cape Cod. However, in the summer the distinctive "arm" of Massachusetts transforms into a hotbed for baseball. Amongst the Cape's numerous high schools and colleges stands the illustrious Cape League which attracts the very best collegiate baseball prospects in the country. Cape Cod is New England’s mecca of baseball.
For most young boys in New England, summer means freedom. Three months of sun, relaxation and baseball. Organized football doesn't start till mid-August, basketball and hockey generally don't pick up until well after the leaves have left the trees. So baseball is left alone to capitalize on the summer vacations of boys (and girls) across New England. Even those who hate the game usually play through at least Little League.
Summer's on the Cape however, produce an entirely different baseball atmosphere. Every year hundreds of families across the Cape "foster" a Cape League player for the summer. Each of the League's ten teams are required to provide housing for their players. So families volunteer to house players in spare bedrooms, garages or on the pull out futons. While it's a cute nuance to life on the Cape, it can have a profound effect on for young aspiring baseball players. Cape League players have eighty nine percent chance of playing some form of professional baseball, so to twelve year old boys these talented college athletes are gods.
  For one lanky eighteen year old kid from Dennis Port, it was growing up around Cape League players that inspired him to keep playing baseball even after he wanted to quit. Calzone Ciarcia thought his day's of playing baseball had ended. A senior third basemen at Sacred Heart high school, he was fully prepared to move on from the game he had played for the last dozen years of his life. Calzone planed on going to college for film production and new that most film schools don't have sports teams.
 Enter Emerson College, a division three school, fifty two miles north of the light houses and salt water taffy of Nauset Beach in the heart of Boston. Emerson is a liberal arts school with a strong reputation in film production and journalism. 

For a teenager who was planing on retiring his glove for good, the chance to play college baseball and pursue his dreams of  film production was too good to pass up. 

                                                        (Calzone Ciarcia playing third)

“Once I knew they had a baseball team, Emerson really became my first choice. Every kid in New England dreams of playing baseball in Boston."says Calzone, now twenty and a sophomore at Emerson College.
 While, most Little Leaguers probably imagine Fenway Park, Calzone is perfectly happy with Malden Catholic, a high school field the team uses while planing for a field of their own. High school field or not, a teenage Ciarcia burst on to the scene at Emerson hitting .307 with 20 RBI’s and stole fourteen bases (third in the conference) in thirty six games as a freshman.

                                      (Calzone after stealing a base at Rivier College)

Now a cog in the Emerson lineup the lanky Ciarcia projects to hit cleanup and play third base for a team that finished sixth in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference or GNAC last season. “Last year was great. I was welcomed with open arms and it was one of the coolest experiences ever. This year the team is going be great. We have a lot of good players coming back and a lot of good players coming in, so the confidence is flowing.”

However, for Calzone Ciarcia the road to Emerson could have taken a much different turn, “This surprises some people but for most of my life I wanted to play college hockey.” Growing up on in Dennis-Port, Calzone spent his summer's playing baseball and working for the Cape Leauge's Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox. Yet, in the winter he was one hundred percent  focused on hockey. “I had a blast playing hockey my senior year of high school, I would have loved to have played in college, it just turned out that my college of choice had a baseball team with some open roster spots.” 

                                              (Calzone at Sacred Heart high school)

Calzone still holds hockey near and dear to his heart, “As far as the fun and excitement, nothing compares to hockey. It’s my favorite sport, with baseball being a close second.”
While hockey may have his heart, baseball had his youth. Calzone’s cites being around so many world class baseball players while growing up as one of the main reasons he committed to playing baseball at Emerson. 

"We never had any stars stay with us but a friend of mine had Brad Hawpe stay with him, which was pretty cool", notes Calzone.
Hawpe a 2009 Major League All-Star, hit .338 in the 2007 NLCS helping lead the Colorado Rockies to their very first World Series appearance.
 "As cool as having baseball players was, I always dreamed of having Adam Oates or P.J. Stock stay at my house", says Calzone.
While in his heart might still belong to hockey player, the rest of body has turned into one of the best baseball players in his conference. In six games so far this year Calzone has seven hits and leads Emerson in run's scored. His heart may always prefer the ice but after growing up on the Cape Cod, Calzone Ciarcia can't out skate the game of baseball.