CHATHAM — Nick Derba and Matt Rizzotti, a pair of roughneck New Yorkers, are savagely strong, with meaty legs, broad shoulders and Popeye forearms. But they’re not so manly they’re afraid to give out a hug every now and then. 

     Right before game time is when you can find the two Manhattan College ball players going all amorous on their Chatham A’s teammates. And these aren’t the kind of hunched over, ass out, three taps on the backs type of greetings either. These are chest-to-chest and hold for effect bear hugs. 
     Not exactly the ‘let’s-get-pumped-up’ action you’d expect from a couple of hardened city kids, especially Derba, whose shaven head, stubbly goatee and jet black face paint gives him a tough guy guise. 
     “The hugs started just as a joke, but now they’ve become superstition,” said Rizzotti, who shares most of his embraces with the A’s all-star closer Paul Koss. “We both say to each other ‘Good things,’ [as in] nothing but good things can happen.’” 
The duo’s doting ways, however unbecoming in a baseball setting, have paid dividends on the field and, in fact, led to good things. 
     Derba, now in his third year in a Chatham uniform, has been sensational as the team’s starting catcher, throwing runners out with remarkable regularity, and making a number of acrobatic catches that have rendered the crowd’s eyes as wide as Frisbees.
     Meanwhile Rizzotti, the team’s clean up and power-hitting first baseman, ranks second on the team with four home runs and second in the entire Cape Cod Baseball League with a whopping 24 RBIs.
     Growing up – Derba in Queens, Rizzotti on Long Island – the two knew little about Cape Cod, and even less about its wooden bat league that serves as an off-season circuit for marquee college players. 
     What they did know was how to win baseball games, and big ones at that. As teammates at Archbishop Malloy, the talented twosome were instrumental in leading the Queens-based Catholic school to one of its famed 17 city championships, defeating an Xaverian team (in 2002) that featured five future major league draft picks. 
     “It was the best feeling ever, best in the world,” recalled Derba. “Especially because we got to miss school and do a pile-on at Shea Stadium,” added Rizzotti. 
     From there, they took their prodigious prowess to Manhattan College, which hosts its games at Van Cortlandt Park – a public park in the Bronx that’s in earshot of the Major Deegan Expressway, home to many other local teams, and sometimes frequented by vagrants and other itinerant guests. 
     It’s for those reasons, as well as the fact that a portable aluminum bench serves as the team’s dugout, that no one ever confuses the unadorned diamond with that of, say, North Carolina’s well-sheltered park, or the picturesque playing surface at Pacific Coastal Pepperdine. 
     But the school’s Spartan facilities haven’t hindered Derba or Rizzotti’s development. This spring Derba hit .304 with eight doubles and Rizzotti finished with a team-best .340 average and nine homers in leading the Jaspers to their first NCAA tournament berth in 49 years. The reward for such a sterling season was a trip, or in Derba’s case a return trip, across the Bourne Bridge. 

A Taste Of The Cape

     Following his standout spring, the book on Rizzotti was that he was a bona fide slugger, and it didn’t take him long at all to live up to that billing, crushing a grand slam in Chatham’s 6-5 come-from-behind victory over Y-D opening day. A week later, he and Derba shared the glory, accounting for all of Chatham’s runs in a 5-3 victory over Bourne. Derba hit a two-run homer, and Rizzotti added an RBI ground out and two-run moon shot to boot. 
“We were priding ourselves after that,” said Rizzotti. “We were like, “Wow, little Manhattan College took it home tonight.’” 
     But the harsh and inevitable realities of the Cape League set in soon after, as the two saw their averages drop as result of hitting with unfamiliar wood bats against a formidable contingent of the nation’s ace pitchers. 
     “It’s been an uphill struggle at the plate,” confessed Derba, hitting .113 this summer, a stark drop-off from his .211 average last season. “I felt great coming in and thought I was going to put up my best numbers ever. But sometimes things don’t go your way and sometimes you just get beat,” to which Rizzotti, hitting .220, added, “Amen.” 
     The biggest difference between college and Cape League ball, Rizzotti said, is the pitching, “but fielding is a close second. You’re basically facing an all-star team every night. A guaranteed hit up the middle at school isn’t always a hit here, because the players on the Cape are that much faster. Even a little blooper that you thought would stay foul is sometimes caught by someone making a diving catch.”
     Elaborated Derba, “There’s basically three centerfielders in the outfield, two short stops up the middle, and two corner men that all can move, with the exception of a few,” he joked, shifting his eyes and jabbing his elbow at Rizzotti. 
     Despite his offensive shortcomings, Derba has had an uncanny ability to not only leave his failures at the plate, but make up for them behind it, which is what separates him from most other Cape Leaguers, according to long-time Chatham Field Manager John Schiffner. 
     “Nick made one of the best catches I’ve ever seen a catcher make this season. It was a wind-blown, foul pop up that hugged the backstop netting to the right of our dugout, and he layed out and made a fantastic catch,” said Schiffner. “That’s the way Nick plays. He knows he’s not helping us all that much offensively, but he never carries a bad at-bat onto the field. Out there, he always gets the job done.” 
     The reason, Derba explained, “is because I’ve always been told defense wins ball games, and good defensive teams start with a good defensive catcher.”
     Rizzotti, too, has used his golden glove to make up for what’s been a challenging season that’s involved a series of hot and cold spells. And also like Derba, he’s managed to keep his cool, often tilting his head and forming a closed-lipped, sardonic smile following strikeouts. 
     “Nick told me don’t be afraid to fail, and don’t be disappointed if you do,” said Rizzotti. “I really didn’t know what to expect in terms of batting average. My goals were just to hold my own and show everyone a little bit of what I can do.” 
     That’s been easier to do with his Mom, Barbara, and Dad, Pat, in the stands. Ironically, and by no means intentionally, Rizzotti hit his first three home runs when his parents were in attendance. Call it parental, not divine, intervention. Rizzotti just calls it a good luck charm.
     “The first time I was standing in the on deck circle with the bases loaded. I looked up and saw my dad put four fingers up then do a little prayer sign, like he was saying ‘four, please,” said Rizzotti. “After I hit it out I said to myself, ‘oh my God.’ The next time they came up, I happened to see them in the crowd right before I came up and wound up hitting it out again. I said to myself, ‘this is just weird.’
     “And the third time, [assistant coach Matt] Fincher said to me before the game, ‘Matty you’ve been struggling. How about getting me some kind of hit, even a little blooper or broken bat single. I looked at him and said, ‘Finch, you’ve got nothing to worry about. My parents are here tonight. It’s a home run guaranteed, and in my last at bat of the game I put one over the centerfield fence. As I rounded third, Finch said, ‘OK, that’s just weird.’” 

It’s Not Baseball Or Bust

     While Derba doesn’t have a story to rival that one (then again, few do), he’s had a myriad of lasting memories during his stay on the Cape’s elbow, none greater than coming to the park each night and hearing the sustained roar of the fans.
     “The baseball up here is awesome, and it’s been amazing playing in front of such devout fans,” said Derba. “I’ve had the best summers of my life down here. If I could I wouldn’t change a thing. I couldn’t have asked for a better place to play.”
     Rizzotti seconded that notion.
     “I heard stories before I came about how the fans are just tourists who come through, but it’s not like that at all. There’s 2,500 people here every night and everyone is into the game. The other night we were down and the whole stadium started clapping. It was unbelievable.”
     It would be nice, both players said, to one day hear the cheers of 25,000 fans. Playing pro ball is a mutual goal, but for both boys, it’s not baseball or bust.
     Should the majors not call, Derba, an honors student with a 3.4 GPA, plans to attend medical school to earn a degree in orthopedic surgery. “Both my parents are teachers, so the first thing they told me when I popped out was education comes first and everything else comes second. They told me baseball is not going to put food on the table.”
     Rizzotti, who Schiffner said has probably the most major league potential on this year’s A’s team, is cautiously optimistic he can make it the show. 
     “There’s a legitimate chance it could happen. I’m just hoping to make the most of that opportunity and chance, because unlike Mr. Derba, I’m not going to study orthopedic surgery,” said Rizzotti. “If baseball doesn’t work out, I’m going to be a physical education teacher. That’s not a bad thing. I mean, it puts food on the table.”
     Rizzotti then stopped to reconsider what he just said and altered his answer. “Well, it might put food on the table. I’m not sure, because teaching doesn’t pay too much these days. But,” he says glancing at Derba, “I’ve always got my friend Nick here.”
     Derba smiles, and the two begin to laugh.
     Feels like a good time for a hug. 

by Eric Adler
Eric Adler