By Mike DiMauro
The Day
Originally published July 8, 2010
And we're complaining about heat here? Please. Try being Anthony Giansanti. He's the former Montville High whiz kid whose lifelong dream to get a crack at professional baseball has landed him in ... Mesa, Ariz.
That's 20 miles east of Phoenix in summertime, where it's hotter than the devil's drawers. And this is where Giansanti, an undrafted free agent, begins his journey in the Arizona Summer League to become a Chicago Cub.
"Well," Giansanti was saying from his hotel room early Wednesday afternoon, "the average day, it's about 110. Not a cloud in the sky. No chance of rain. Any breeze feels like a blow dryer."
All of which generate odd circumstances for Giansanti's next line.
"I'm very happy," he said.
Indeed. Giansanti's path to the instructional league in the Cubs organization hasn't been traditional. In 2009, he was drafted as a junior at Siena College in the 49th round. He went back to school, before which he thrived in a summer wooden-bat league. He hit .336 with 20 homers for the Saints this past season ... and then didn't get drafted in June.
"I know things in baseball are never a definite," he said.
Happily, the Cubs called. And now he gets his chance. That's all he wants. Even that, though, isn't a definite.
"The best part so far, is that they've given me a chance," he said, after having played in eight of the Cubs' first 12 games, hitting .280. "As a non-drafted free agent, sometimes you get a little skeptical about the chances you'll get. But they're giving me chances."
Non-drafted free agents, let alone kids from the Northeast, come in with what amounts to an 0-2 count on them. Organizations have money invested in draftees, meaning draftees get chances free agents don't. Plus, Giansanti comes from a region of the country not necessarily considered fertile for baseball. Essentially, he'll have to work twice as hard to get noticed half as much.
But he already knew that.
"I talked a lot to my cousin (Gary Burnham of South Windsor who made it to Triple A) and (Diamondbacks scout) Todd Donovan (also made it to Triple A)," Giansanti said. "I kind of knew what to expect."
Almost, anyway. He probably didn't expect to be taking early batting practice when it's 110 degrees 2,500 miles from home.
Giansanti said he's at the ballpark every day by 1:30 for a 7 p.m. game. Early hitting, early individual defensive instruction, team defense and batting practice all precede the first pitch.
"You try to stay as cool as long as you can," he said.
Giansanti's time playing sports around here feels like a lifetime ago. He's the only athlete in the history of the region to be named The Day's Player of the Year in two sports during the same season (football, baseball, 2006). He was part of the Indians' state championship baseball team that year, an act his alma mater repeated last month.
"When I saw they won another state championship," he said, "I couldn't help thinking, 'We won one that long ago, huh?'"
Funny, though, how Phil Orbe, his high school coach, still has a place inside Giansanti's head every time he's on the field.
"(Orbe) was always adamant about me doing things the right way because people are going to be watching," Giansanti said. "You never know who and you never know where. So doing things right all the time has always stayed with me."
Giansanti has played all three outfield positions and some third base for the Arizona Cubbies. He knows the deal. But he also knows not everyone gets this chance. Kind of funny how Anthony Giansanti left here, where everyone knew his name, for a place across the country where nobody knows it at all. And now it's his job to give them no choice but to notice.
"When you come in as a free agent, you can't negotiate anything," he said. "Everything to them and me is a surprise right now. They have a lot of guys who they've invested money in. But I'm getting a chance. All I can ask."
