Good beginning for new Staten Island Yankee Peter O'Brien

The roads not taken could have pulled Peter O’Brien in a few different directions rather than the path he ended up on, which brought him here to Staten Island on Saturday morning.

A year ago this time, O’Brien was a third-round draft selection of the Colorado Rockies coming off his junior season at Bethune-Cookman. But by the fall O’Brien was neither a Rockie nor a BC Wildcat.

Instead, it was out of the University of Miami that the New York Yankees selected O’Brien in the second round of the June amateur draft — the 89th selection overall — and after a few games in the Gulf Coast League the catcher went right into Staten Island’s starting lineup the last two days.

In the Yanks’ 11-8 loss to the Williamsport Crosscutters Sunday at the Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, O’Brien had a sixth-inning sac fly RBI that cut Staten Island’s early 10-run deficit down to three runs, followed by a ninth-inning single.

It was a rare enough move that O’Brien chose to forgo signing with the Rockies last summer, but he followed that up with his decision to transfer to Miami.

“I wanted to move back home and be with my family,” said O’Brien. “I wanted another year of college baseball.

“I don’t want to get into it too much. But it was great and it was a good decision and it was a lot of fun.”

O’Brien has chosen not to discuss publicly the reasons for his transfer, but Miami coach Jim Morris was only too happy to see a hometown kid he hadn’t recruited out of high school fall into his lap.

The only problem was waiting to see if O’Brien would be approved to play immediately, rather than sitting out a year as a transfer student. After an initial denial, his appeal was approved in January.

“I didn’t think too much about it,” said O’Brien. “I was positive with things. I kept working hard and doing everything as if I was getting ready for the first game of the season.

“Once I got approved it was a big weight lifted off my shoulders.”

O’Brien went on to lead the Hurricanes in hitting with a .340 batting average, slugging .626 with a .441 on-base percentage. He added 10 home runs and 40 RBI in 41 games.

He earned All-ACC honors even though his season was interrupted by a broken left wrist on April 15 after he was hit by a pitch against Virginia Tech. O’Brien missed the final 17 regular season games and the ACC tournament opener before returning to DH and play first base in the ACC and NCAA Tournaments.

The Yankee organization felt no need to rush O’Brien back from the wrist injury. He worked out in Florida and played four games for the GCL Yankees, hitting .357, before jumping up to the New York-Penn League.

“I went down to the Gulf Coast and got my wrist back into shape,” said O’Brien. “I hadn’t caught since April. I did a lot of drills and I caught a couple games down there and got back into the swing of things.”


(silive.com)