Maroon and blue
More than a Game Members of Knights baseball learn to seize the day on the Xavier diamond
Xavier baseball coaches (L to R): Dennis Baker, S.J., Lou Lovallo and Ben Hamm on 16th Street today.
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hen baseball players head south, it’s usually to Florida for Spring Training. Three former athletes from a Jesuit high school in Upstate New York took a much shorter journey south for baseball — to New York City, to coach at Xavier High School. Dennis Baker, S.J., Benjamin Hamm and Luciano Lovallo, freshman and junior varsity baseball coaches at Xavier, were all baseball
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players at Canisius High School in Buffalo, N.Y. The former Crusaders are now using baseball as an interdisciplinary tool, teaching young Knights a game ingrained with Jesuit values. According to Mr. Baker, a 1998 Canisius graduate and Xavier freshman baseball coach, participating in high school athletics has a powerful impact on the minds of young men. “The baseball field is a place they want to be,” he said. “They’re excited
for it, much more than for their Global Studies homework. They do it because they want to be there and not because someone’s making them.” Mr. Baker went on to say that baseball at Xavier also mirrors life. “It’s a great environment to teach a lot of the things we talk about in a Jesuit education,” he added. “It’s a great environment for that to come into focus for them.” Hamm, a 1999 Canisius grad and the first of the three to start coaching at Xavier, saw his time on the field