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09/08/2016 12:00 AMKevin Lucey was a newcomer on the North Haven Senior Legion baseball team this summer, but it didn’t take long for him to make a positive impression. Head Coach Charlie Flanagan took note of Kevin’s willingness to work hard from the get-go and that work ethic ultimately propelled Kevin toward a great rookie year. Kevin earned the starting catcher’s job for Post 76 and, at season’s end, he was named the team’s Most Improved Player and a co-recipient of the Best Defensive Player Award.
“I saw this kid show up and he was a lanky kind of guy and I scratched my head and said, ‘Who is this guy?’ But as soon as somebody said, ‘Kevin, I want you over here,’ he ran as fast as he could to that position. Or if they said, ‘Pick up the bucket,’ he picked up the bucket,” Coach Flanagan says. “So I liked this kid already because he listens and hustles and he just got better and better and better as the season went on.”
Kevin was the backup catcher for the high school’s varsity team as a sophomore this spring and he’s also played fall ball for Tim Binkoski, who was recently named the new head coach of the Post 76 Seniors. Kevin says his expectations entering the recent season were to “play pretty good defense and bat .280.” Despite struggling early while adjusting to the wood bat and the Legion level of pitching, Kevin became more selective at the plate as the campaign progressed and wound up hitting .333.
Kevin would often walk around his house with the wood bat in hand just to get a better feel for it. That type of extra effort, along with all his hard work at practice, played a major part in Kevin’s success this summer.
“The only way to get success is to work hard,” Kevin says. “Since I’ve played with Tim, he’s taught me many things that I needed to do and, even when I worked hard a little bit for it, I saw drastic improvement. So I figured I’d work even harder to get that much better and it paid off this summer.”
Coach Flanagan says that Kevin “worked his butt off and put in more extra time than anybody on the team.” As a result, Flanagan saw Kevin’s abilities flourish both in the batter’s box and behind the dish.
“Of all our batters, he was able to adjust to the pitching level we saw. Kevin was overmatched in the beginning, but he made up the difference with his defense and hustle and, halfway through the season, he was as good a hitter as we had,” says Flanagan. “He hit the ball to where it was pitched, he hustled, and he called a really good game behind the plate—a heady game...Kevin could see how pitchers and batters aligned themselves and he always stayed away from a batter’s strengths. For a 16-year-old to do that is phenomenal. You see that ability in a kid and it stems from his want to get better. His goal is to be a varsity player and play in college and he has the skills and work ethic to do so.”
Kevin has been catching throughout his baseball career and likes the leadership aspect of the position, including how he gets to decide what his pitchers are going to throw. Kevin says he learned a lot about how to play catcher from fellow backstop Mike DeRosa, who was a senior captain on the high school team this year.
“I really enjoy the position. You’re the last guy defending the plate and it’s cool to know that the team is depending on you in many aspects of the game,” says Kevin, who throws right-handed and bats lefty. “I want to credit most of my catching ability to Mike DeRosa, who really taught me a lot during the varsity season on what to do with blocking, receiving, and all that. He just made me a better catcher overall.”
Kevin committed just one error all summer for the Senior Legion team and that’s why he shared the Best Defensive Player Award with Dom Fusco. However, that wasn’t the only award Kevin took home that night as he was also selected as North Haven’s Most Improved Player.
“It was really exciting when coach read my name and I got up, shook hands, and took the picture. I was honored to be the Most Improved Player, which is a really cool award,” Kevin says. “Some people might think it’s weird because it means you weren’t as good at the start of the year, but it’s good that people recognized your potential and that you grew throughout the year.”
With DeRosa having graduated, Kevin is aiming to keep improving with hopes of being the man behind the plate for the Indians in 2017.
“I definitely want to be the starter next year,” Kevin says.