Borough’s best develop together at Caldwell

The first few days of college can be quite daunting. Living in a new setting and surrounded by fresh faces, it is a different world.
Edgar Santos initially felt those jitters away from home last fall, attending Division II Caldwell College in northern New Jersey, an hour’s drive from his home in Woodside. Luckily for him, there were others just like him - Queens baseball players - who had gone through the same experience the year before. Moments after moving in, he received a call from sophomore Omar Velazquez, like Santos a former PSAL star, asking him to meet for a catch.
“It made everything easier,” Santos said. “He introduced me to everybody.”
Everybody included former St. Francis Prep star Rob Casal and Alex Mejia, Santos’s one-time teammate at Bryant, in addition to Anthony Velazquez, the former Bayside standout who threw back-to-back perfect games as a junior. The five Queens guys are extremely close. They car pool together on trips back to the city and are there for each other when times get tough - in the classroom or on the baseball diamond.
They have also helped Caldwell continue its winning tradition. A year after winning the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) regular season crown, the Cougars are 16-8 in league play (26-15 overall), even with Philadelphia and Wilmington atop the division.
Omar Velazquez, the Cougars’ leadoff hitter and centerfielder, is hitting .273 with four homeruns, 22 runs batted in and a team-high 29 runs scored in addition to excelling in spot duty, compiling a 3-0 record and 2.61 earned run average in six starts. Casal, an All-CACC first-team selection last spring after compiling a 10-1 mark, has become one of the starting rotation’s stalwarts, striking out 84 in 64 1/3 innings pitched and a 2.66 earned run average. Mejia adds a reliable arm in the bullpen while Santos, the starting shortstop as a freshman, has adjusted to his first year of college ball quite nicely with a .275 batting average and 13 runs batted in. Anthony Velazquez, meanwhile, has barely pitched because of a shoulder injury.
Much of the credit for their quick transition, the borough’s standouts say, is a credit to Chris Reardon, the eighth-year manager and Cardozo product. A Queens College graduate and former St. John’s assistant coach, he runs a no-nonsense program.
“He has integrity, he’s honest, he just wants the best for his players,” said Bryant Manager Rocco Rotundi, who attended Queens College with Reardon. “It’s not just about playing, he wants them to get a college degree, graduate and eventually make a significant contribution to society.”
When Santos was not reaching Reardon’s academic standards early in the year, he left him behind one road trip to send a message. The summer before his freshman year, Reardon ordered Casal not to pick up a baseball to rest his arm. When other suitors for Omar Velazquez unexpectedly fell off the map, Reardon kept his promise of a scholarship and playing time.
“He’s going to be very straight forward with you,” said Mejia, an East Elmhurst native. “He really doesn’t beat around the bush.”
Said Omar Velazquez: “He knows what he wants and he goes for it. Plus he’s a winner.”
Playing for Reardon is not easy. He is “brutally honest,” a hard-nosed throwback who schedules early-morning practices and preaches proper fundamentals, done time and time again until correct. It is for that reason over 20 percent of the disciplinarian’s roster comes from the city. From his playing days, Reardon has numerous coaching contacts that understand the type of player he wants - competitive, mentally strong and determined. Often times, he attends local high school games before eating dinner with his mother at his childhood home in Jackson Heights.
“These guys, they understand my mentality better, they can relate to me more - blue collar, tough,” Reardon said. “When I recruit them, I tell them I’m going to coach the way I was coached, and that’s tough.”
Befitting a team from the five boroughs, the Cougars are a confident bunch. At the high school level, there is a certain stigma attached to a star player not advancing to Division I. However, the Queens guys revel at their level. They are quite content to play Division II ball.
“We definitely have more than a few Division I caliber players,” said Omar Velazquez, an All-CACC second-team selection as a freshman. “Coach just rounds us up and puts us together. We have great chemistry. You never know, people are drafted out of Division II schools all the time. We might as well stay here, try to win a championship.”