BRIDGEWATER TOWNSHIP, N.J. — There was a time when Patrick McVerry dreamed of a using athletic skills that stood out during his youth for a career in professional sports as opposed to his fulfilling and exciting long-time gig as president and general manager of the Somerset Patriots.
McVerry loved running a minor-league franchise that was a powerhouse for decades in the independent Atlantic League and he’s loved it even more since last season’s thrilling promotion to Yankees’ Double-A affiliate. But throughout his childhood and into his teens, the upstate Pennsylvania native wanted to be play in the NBA. He was a star hooper through high school in Stroudsburg, Pa., and he played in college at Penn State Hazleton, but as he put it, “I was 6-foot; the vertical and a few other things prevented me from playing professionally.”
It was the same in baseball for a kid who grew up a big fan of the Yankees’ best player in the 1980s, Don Mattingly. “I hate to pat myself on the back,’ he said, “but as a Little League pitcher I really was extraordinary. I just never could throw hard and I didn’t have the mechanics. When you throw in the upper 60s or low 70s in high school, you’re going to get hit hard, and I got hit hard.”
Determined to have a career in sports, McVerry made himself marketable by earning a bachelor’s degree at Penn State and master’s at East Stroudsburg, then he started building up his resume working in sales for the NBA’s New Jersey Nets and Arena Football League’s New Jersey Red Dogs. He switched to baseball to join the Patriots as director of marketing in 1998 when they were one of six expansion teams preparing for the Atlantic League’s inaugural season in ‘99. By 2002, McVerry was promoted to assistant GM, then he became the GM and president in 2002.
It’s been quite a ride. As an independent, the Patriots won 10 division titles and five league championships during McVerry’s GM reign. The success continued in 2021 when Somerset was division champs in its first season as a Yankees’ farm club, a fulfilling but solemn year that included the passing of beloved founder and owner Steve Kalafer, Patriots infielder Oswaldo Cabrera winning Double-A Northeast MVP honors and McVerry being named Baseball Digest’s Minor League Baseball’s Executive of the Year.
The Patriots’ 2022 season begins Thursday night in Reading, and it might become the franchise’s most exciting ever with its roster including Yankees No. 1 prospect Anthony Volpe, who just happens to be born and raised in Watchung, N.J., which is about 10 miles from Somerset’s TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater Township. Six others from MLB Pipeline’s top 30 Yankees prospects will start the season with the Patriots, who will be managed by Dan Fiorito.
McVerry, 52, recently talked to NJ Advance Media about running the Patriots, the trying but rewarding 2021 season and Volpe being part of this year’s squad in a Q & A:
Q: How did your job change from being GM of an independent league team to Yankees’ farm club besides no longer having to find and sign players?
McVerry: As an independent, part of my job was making sure I have a manager, coaches and a player personnel director, making sure we have players. That’s a whole other part of the business that I don’t deal with, which maybe in some cases I miss but in a lot of other cases I don’t because the Yankees do such an incredible job with their farm system. We’re getting such amazing prospects coming through here. The job as independent baseball general manager can be quite trying, especially as you get into the season and players retire or get picked up or get hurt. You’re always worried about making sure you can field a team on a nightly basis. That is absolutely on the Yankees now. I deal with our farm director directly making sure players coming in here have places to live and are taken care of, like if somebody needs to be picked up … stuff like that. Now I just have to see if that person coming in, like an Anthony Volpe, can help us sell some tickets.
Q: What are your main duties?
McVerry: I’m in charge of the business side, so I handle making sure fans are coming to the games. I deal with revenue as far as sponsorships and advertising. As president and general manager, I have great people underneath me who have been here for 20 years, so I see us as a fine-oiled machine. Our goal from the beginning of this thing hasn’t changed. We want to have affordable family entertainment and a great baseball product. I think we can definitely accomplish both of those things and have one of the best facilities for these prospects.
Q: You had a whirlwind first season as a Yankees farm club. Steve Kalafer passed away three weeks before opening day, and I know what he meant to the organization and the community. And he loved the Yankees his whole life. He would have loved watching the first season play out, especially the continued on-field success, seeing Luis Severino, Zack Britton and other Yankees suiting up for rehab games. Besides that, you had to deal with Hurricane Ida completely flooding your ballpark late in the season.
McVerry: You hit it on the head. From starting the year trying to get our renovations and upgrades for the Yankees done on time, not knowing when we’re going to start or if we’re going to start with COVID protocols, our chairman and friend passing away, then we actually had a very rainy season prior to the flood and then the flood comes ... It was tough.
Q: The Patriots played a home game eight days after the flood. How did you pull this off?
McVerry: We’ve been through it before. I knew what we were capable of. The water came in on a Thursday morning and it was all out of the ballpark by Friday afternoon. We got to work that Friday. I kept asking our groundskeeper, ‘Are we going to be OK? He said, ‘I think so.’ We finally got the approval from MLB the next Wednesday that we were good to play on Friday.
Q: Was the flooding this time worse than what you had to deal with after Hurricane Floyd (in September 1999) and Hurricane Irene (in September 2011)?
McVerry: This was the worst one. I’ve been here for all three. This one was the most amount of water and the most amount of damage. We had seven or eight feet of water on the field that went right into our auxiliary locker room, our batting cage facility and our storage area. We had just finished a lot of these new parts of the building for the Yankees. They were destroyed. Furniture, heating units, vanities, drywall, carpeting, IT equipment, computers, groundskeepers’ equipment ... it was all under water. The piping in the infrastructure of our outfield wall was ruined. Two parking lots were underwater. There were even fish in the outfield.
Q: Fish were swimming in the outfield? What kind?
McVerry: The fish in the outfield grass were minnows. They were dead. But in our parking lot there were carp swimming around that were at least a foot long. They were swimming out there for a couple of weeks until they died when the water receded.
Q: This year should be fun. You mentioned Anthony Volpe. No. 1 prospect. New Jersey guy who grew up 20 minutes away. Pretty exciting, huh?
McVerry: Sure. A little history about Anthony. My son is the same age. Anthony played basketball for Watchung against my son’s team, Branchburg, I was the head coach. We used to play Watchung every year … fourth, fifth, sixth grades.
Q: What kind of basketball player was Volpe?
McVerry: Anthony was probably the best player on the team. He was really short and very athletic. He could handle the ball, especially when he was in fourth and fifth grade when a lot of the other kids were still trying to figure that out. I remember specifically when he was fifth grade, his team beat us and he hit a couple of threes. I always remember his smile. I was like, ‘God, this kid seems so happy.’ I think it was his seventh-grade year when he wasn’t on the team anymore. I even asked our assistant coach about it. He said, ‘Apparently Anthony’s dad pulled him from basketball so he could focus on baseball. Does his dad think he’s going to be the next Derek Jeter or something?’ I’ll never forget that because years later there Anthony Volpe was drafted number one by the Yankees.
Q: And now Volpe is being compared to Jeter by teammates and scouts. What’s it been like preparing for Volpe?
McVerry: As far as Anthony goes, we want this to be a great place for him to play. We just want to be part of his journey, and be an important part of it where he can look back and think fondly of us. As far as this team goes, you really can’t ask for a better story than having a No. 1 prospect for the Yankees from Somerset County play for you. That in itself is going to sell tickets. People are going to want to come out and watch him. In the offseason, Anthony Volpe was the number one conversation that I’d had with sponsors and season-ticket holders, fans, so the buzz has been out there. And that was before it was official that Anthony would be jumping from High-A to Double-A this season. Obviously, we’re going to be promoting it a lot. He is going to make a great impact on our attendance.
Q: Are there marketing things you’re planning to do to capitalize on having a top prospect playing Double-A ball in his backyard?
McVerry: We have been throwing out ideas of doing an Anthony Volpe poster night, possibly a giveaway jersey or T-shirt night. There are other ideas being throwing around. As I understand it, he’s super nice guy and he’s willing to assist us in any way. We look forward to having him here, but we also look forward to providing him the best opportunity to make the next step.
Q: The Patriots have one Hall of Famer as an alum. Tim Raines was with Somerset when he made what turned out to be a failed attempt to be part of the USA Olympic team in 2000. He only played a few games for the Patriots, but he was in for all 17 innings in the longest game in franchise history and then the next day played both ends of a doubleheader. So he apparently was no prima donna.
McVerry: I remember it fondly. Tim Raines was a gentleman. He was a big leaguer. Everyone really admired the way he carried himself. He’d buy food spreads for the guys. At the end we went to pay him and he wouldn’t accept the check. That was exciting time. The fact he was recently elected to the Hall of Fame is something special for us.
Q: Other Somerset alums that stand out include relatives of two other Hall of Famers. Tom Glavine’s younger brother Mike was a productive first baseman for your 2001 and 2002 teams before he made it to the majors with the Mets in 2003. You also had Edgard Clemente in 2003-04. His Uncle Roberto is one of the biggest names in baseball history. Did you get any good stories from those guys?
McVerry: Oh, wow. Now you’re taking me back! We won our first championship with Mike Glavine in ‘01. He was a class act, one of my all-time favorites to deal with. In regard to Edgard, I remember his name coming over on our fax when his agency let us know he was available. I quickly Googled him. I figured he had to be Roberto’s nephew, and he was. I was so excited to have him here. His first year with us, he led us to a championship.
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Q: Somerset was the class of the Atlantic League for years and years. How were you able to be so dominant? Was it spending more money than others to bring in the best talent? Was it something else? I’m guessing having a very committed owner had a lot to do with it.
McVerry: You just hit it on the head. Why we’re successful from the beginning is our owner wanted to make sure we provided our players with the best opportunities, the best facility, the best housing arrangements. We gathered that reputation over those early years and into the early 2000s. Our manager, Sparky Lyle, was a player’s manager. Also, Somerset County is a great place for these players to be. I think that lent a lot of our success. Run things the right way, don’t cut corners, spend money when you need to spend money. That reputation lent itself to the interest of the Yankees.
Q: Somerset also annually has been one of the best draws in minor league baseball. Are you thinking you might set a new attendance record this year with Volpe onboard?
McVerry: I hope so. Weather is the number one factor. You could have everything planned out perfect, but if you have a rainy summer, that really affects your attendance and the enthusiasm from your fan base. Our best year was 2007 when we averaged 5,300. If everything plays out to what a normal year would be, a couple rainouts and maybe some cold weather early, this should be our best year ever.
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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.
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