At College:  Acushnet's Sullo named as MASCAC Player, Rookie of Year

May 1, 2015

By Brendan Kurie, South Coast Today

Logan Sullo has gone from climbing towers to towering over the competition.

Thanks to a layoff, a love for diesel engines and a hot streak at the plate that just won’t let up, the 20-year-old Sullo was named MASCAC Baseball Player and Rookie of the Year this week, becoming the first player in Mass Maritime history to garner POY of honors, and just the third to be named ROY.

Along the way he was the key cog in an offense that helped the Buccaneers capture their first conference title in program history, a fitting send-off for coach Bob Corradi, who will be retiring after a 43-year run.

“Not in a million years would I expect to hit the way I did this year,” Sullo said. “I just came in and said to myself ‘Just swing the bat.’ I’ve never really had a season like this before.”

A season like what? Well, start with his .492 batting average, .589 on-base percentage and .905 slugging percentage across 20 games (79 plate appearances). That adds up to a whopping 1.496 OPS, a number never reached by an MLB player over the course of an entire season (Barry Bonds put up a 1.422 in 2004 and Babe Ruth maxed out at 1.38 in 1920).

“He’s really carried us,” Corradi said. “He is absolutely a pleasant surprise. When you get a young man who comes in here and turns over the numbers he has — I’m on the All-New England selection committee and I’ve never seen a young man with on-base and slugging percentages like that.”

His counting numbers — 17 runs, 18 RBI, eight doubles, six triples, two home runs — are a little light, only because of his unique journey to become a student at Mass Maritime meant he wasn’t on the team for its five-game season-opening stretch in Florida. Still, his 57 total bases led the team by 19 during the regular season. He did all this hitting third in the lineup despite four different batters filling the four-hole behind him.

“We have not had anybody that produced in the four-hole,” Corradi said. “All the teams coming in realize that this is the guy that leads our offense and we didn’t have anybody else to protect him. It’s really been unbelievable.”

As strange as it is to have a freshman lead your team in nearly every offensive category — runs and steals being the only obvious exceptions — it’s even rarer for that guy to be a 20-year-old who spent two years as a tower technician for a cell phone company.

Sullo, an Acushnet native, graduated from Bishop Stang in 2012 — he was a Standard-Times Super Team honorable mention selection — and enrolled at Massasoitt Community College. After one semester, it wasn’t for him, so he dropped out and went to work, playing with the Acushnet Aztecs in their inaugural season in the Cranberry League and training at Wild Pitch in New Bedford in his spare time. After getting laid off (he was later offered his position back), he decided to go back to school, taking some classes at Massasoitt before enrolling at Mass Maritime on March 2.

“I decided it was the place for me,” he said. “I heard so many good things about Maritime and getting good jobs when you graduate.”

He attended five or six Tuesday night captain’s practices, then had to stay home as the Bucs went 2-3 in Fort Pierce, Florida. Finally, when they returned, he suited up for the first time on March 19 in a 10-4 win over Becker, going 2-for-4 with a double, run and RBI.

“It was weird coming into the situation, since nobody knew me,” he said. “I had to fit in a little bit with all the kids who had been there. It was tough at first, but when everyone got back from Florida and I saw the college locker room for the first time, it took me back a little bit.”

Early on, watching Sullo in the team’s indoor batting cages, Corradi realized he had a natural hitter on his hands.

“He just has a sweet swing,” Corradi said. “Sometimes it looks long, but it is actually really, really compact. He opens up on that front side, but he drives the ball. He drives everything.”

Sullo’s offense was needed on a team stacked with pitching and defense, but lacking in game-changing at-bats. In an effort to get left-handed hitters into the lineup, Corradi shuffled Sullo around, moving him from left field to catcher to DH. It was reminiscent of his high school days, when Sullo was a catcher who later moved to right field.

All that tweaking allowed the Bucs to finish the regular season 17-10, while winning the regular-season conference title with a 10-4 mark. They entered the 2015 MASCAC Championships as the top seed before losing 6-3 to fourth-seeded Framingham State on Friday afternoon. The Bucs will take on Salem State on Saturday afternoon as they look to keep their season alive. A tournament title would give the Bucs their first NCAA tournament berth in school history.

“It’s been awesome,” Sullo said. “I can’t even explain it with it being coach Corradi’s last year. It’s been unbelievable to be a part of this team. Everything is clicking. … I think we can make a lot of noise. I would love to make a statement all four years I’m here and the have the team succeed each year.”