Campbell remains a force for Bethlehem Plowboys baseball in Tri-State league
copyright Peter Wallace / For Hearst Connecticut Media June 18, 2024
BETHLEHEM – If the Tri-State Baseball League were to mount an advertising campaign, the Bethlehem Plowboys’ reigning league MVP Greg Campbell would be one of its poster guys, standing right alongside the three-time defending league champion Tri-Town Trojans’ liberal sprinkling of former minor and major league MLB players. While Trojans like Willie Yahn (Orioles), Mike Fabiaschi (A’s) and Evan Scribner (A’s and Padres) can talk about the highs and lows of playing in the MLB, Campbell represents dozens of other players in the league with similar talents and stories of their own – all tied together with an undying love for good baseball.
“To be the best, you’ve got to face the best,” said Campbell Saturday evening after his undefeated Plowboys (8-0) wiped out the first-year Torrington Thunder by a much wider margin than their 13-3 mercy-rule seven-inning score. “I’ve always felt like I could compete with any pitcher I’ve faced, even though I haven’t been up against one of the 100-mile-an-hour pros,” Cambell says. Last year’s MVP credentials — .490 batting average and 7 home runs in a league with few home run fences — are all the proof he needs for his statement. Proof that every player in the 12-team league, including newcomer 0-8 Thunder team members, plays for sheer love of the game comes from individual stories of highs and lows, in or out of the MLB.
Campbell is 6-feet-1, 220 pounds, close to what he was when he joined the Plowboys 10 years ago as a two-time All-Berkshire League senior at Lewis Mills High School. “I started at third base and middle infield, but the bigger I got the more I moved over to first base. There were quicker guys than me for the other infield slots but I’m a brick wall at first base,” he laughs. “Jesse Darcy (drafted as a pitcher in 2007 by Tampa Bay) was my high school coach. He played for the Plowboys and told me it was a good way to prepare for college.” Like it did to so many other athletes, Covid robbed Campbell of a playing year in school, but before that, he was a three-year WestConn starter with a .385 batting average, good enough to be disappointed at “only” receiving All-Academic honors from the Little East Conference. Even though he worked out for the Red Sox and earned interest from independent league scouts, “I feel like that extra year of college play might have helped,” he says.
The Tri-State League also lost a baseball season to Covid, but players like Campbell kept answering the bell when it returned. “I love the game of baseball and I love to succeed,” says Campbell, who, at 27, seems to be hitting his prime, much to MLB’s loss and Tri-State’s gain. “I have a really good eye for balls and strikes and I hit with power to all fields,” says Campbell, a lefty batter explaining his rout to the league MVP last year and the same team honor the year before. “They call me ‘The Cap,’” he says, “but sometimes I don’t take enough of my own advice. Mostly it’s about mechanics – like (Saturday), I told (Plowboy catcher) Matt Palumbo he needs to get his foot down. “We’ve got a prep school player, Ryan Ponte, who I think is good enough to get drafted someday, so I work a lot with him.”
Like the MLB itself, Tri-State Baseball makes implicit demands on its players, many of whom have wives and families as well as full time jobs. In a summer-long schedule of Thursday evening and weekend play, off-the-field support can be as important as teammates for the love of baseball to carry its players through. “I’m getting married this year and Kristina looks forward to the season almost as much as I do,” says Campbell, spinning out his own baseball support network in the midst of his job as an insurance broker. “My mom is a die-hard Yankee fan and my dad loves to see me play.”
The good-sized crowd for “country baseball” at Bethlehem’s Gallup Field Saturday afternoon undoubtedly shared that feeling. Well, maybe not Thunder fans who can’t wait to see their own players reach their prime after love of the game keeps bringing them here.