Pat Moriarty Prepares to Take Over Deerfield Academy Baseball

Coach Pat Moriarty with his family last season.  Photo by Dave Bloniarz.

By John McGuirk (@patsfan1313)

SPRINGFIELD - When the opportunity presented itself, Pat Moriarty simply could not let it pass by.

Having spent nearly half of his life at one place, Moriarty, and his family, began to generate some discussion regarding life down the road and what lied beyond the hedges.

As if it were fate, a lifestyle altering opportunity did arise. Albeit much quicker than expected.

Last month, Moriarty, the longtime head baseball coach at former Cathedral High School, now Pope Francis High School in Springfield, was offered and accepted the same position at prestigious Deerfield Academy. A chance to coach at such a highly-reputable academic institution like Deerfield does not come about too often. So, once Moriarty discovered the head coaching position had become vacant, he immediately spun into action.

St. John's (Shrewsbury) Baseball Runs Away from Exhausted Pope Francis

By John McGuirk (@patsfan1313)

SPRINGFIELD - With the beginning of the spring season starting out in less than favorable weather conditions, many teams had no choice but to postpone some games, while left scrambling to find suitable make-up dates.

Which brings us to Pope Francis. Fair or unfair, the Cardinals were thrown into the fire this week. Beginning on Monday, a bit of re-shuffling of the schedule had them playing four games in four days.

Apparently Pope Francis athletic director John Goda must think Cardinals coach Pat Moriarty has enough arms within his pitching rotation to pile this many games on top of one another, instead of spreading them out over the next few weeks.  Pope Francis has just three pitchers that it can honesty rely on, and all were used heavily earlier in the week.

Facing St. John's (Shrewsbury) on Thursday marked Pope Francis' fourth game of this span.  It also marked a meeting between two Super 8 clubs from a year ago.

Fresh off a heart-breaking walk-off loss at Minnechaug late Wednesday night, the turnaround for the Cardinals would  no doubt be brief.

Moriarty had no choice but to dip into his thin well of back end hurlers, and it showed as the Pioneers rouged up four of them, en route to an easy 11-0 victory at Forest Park.

Pittsfield Baseball Hangs on Against Westfield

Pittsfield pitcher Jay Coyne collected the win Saturday, but it wasn't easy for the Generals.

By John McGuirk (@patsfan1313)

WESTFIELD - For all of he hard work, clutch hitting and solid pitching Pittsfield had going for itself over the course of the first six innings, everything nearly came unraveled after Westfield put forth a huge rally in the seventh inning.

The Generals built themselves a tidy six-run cushion heading into the final frame, only to watch in horror as the Bombers continued to send runners across the plate. With the tying run standing on third, relief pitcher Hayden Harrington recorded the final out on a fielder's choice, a force out at second which allowed Pittsfield to exhale a major sigh of relief, as it held on for a 7-6 victory Saturday at Billy Bullens Field.