'The Cats are back': Gardner back on the diamond for a varsity baseball season

GARDNER – The silent springs are no more for the Gardner High School varsity baseball program.

With new head coach Tony Sylvester at the helm, and a spruced-up baseball diamond which now has newly built dugouts and batting cages just a pop-up away from the high school building, the Wildcats are ready to play ball with an 18-game varsity schedule beginning on April 3.

It will be a welcome return to the diamond. The last Wildcats’ varsity baseball game took place early in the spring of 2021 when the season was cancelled, the squad plagued by low roster numbers and the inability to be competitive.

The last full season of Gardner varsity baseball was in 2019. Because of the pandemic, the 2020 season was cancelled. The 2022 and 2023 seasons were also scratched.

“It’s been a lot of work planning for this season after the long hiatus,” said Gardner High athletic director Dan Forte. “We continued with junior varsity teams, building toward this year because we wanted to make it a positive experience for the players.”

With a young team that includes only one senior and one junior, the Wildcats will compete in Mid-Wach D, opening on the road at Bromfield before hosting neighboring Narragansett.

The 27-year-old Sylvester becomes only the 16th Gardner High varsity baseball coach since the first, Charles J. Fox, who led the team from 1913-16. In the ensuing years came 107 consecutive seasons, played mostly on Stone Field on Cross Street.

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“I’m very excited about the season,” Sylvester said. “Gardner High baseball has a storied history with so many great players and coaches in the past. As you’ll probably hear from me many times this spring, ‘The Cats are back.’”

Gardner athletic director Dan Forte praised Sylvester, who has coached Gardner Middle School boys and high school boys’ JV basketball teams during the past five winters.

“Tony’s energy is contagious at every level,” said Forte. “He’s the exact balance of positivity and accountability we need for this baseball program and our athletic community as a whole. Kids as young as my own eight-year-old son all the way through high school are excited to play for him. We knew all along that Tony was a baseball guy, and we’re lucky to have him.”

Sylvester, who grew up in Pepperell, enters with an extensive baseball resume. At North Middlesex High, he was a star right-handed pitcher and left-handed hitter, a two-time team most valuable player, three-time Mid-Wach A All-Star and also a Worcester T&G All-Star.

Sylvester, who had a top-notch fastball, pitched well for one season at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, N.H. before a career-ending arm injury while playing for the Wachusett Dirt Dogs during the summer after his freshman year ended his pitching days.

“I’ve always loved coaching and giving back to the community,” Sylvester said. “Coaching baseball for me is all about developing young men on and off the field. I’ve also found in my basketball coaching years that there’s no more joy than winning close games, something I want to continue to do in baseball here.”

Still, Sylvester understands that the Wildcats will be taking some baby steps after the long layoff. “I have a unique opportunity here, a chance for us to press the reset button and create a new culture and hopefully a winning culture. But it will take time. We all have to realize that we can work hard, play solid baseball and still have fun at the same time. We want to revitalize the program and that starts with controlling what we can control—effort and mentality.”

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Assisting Sylvester in his coaching duties this spring are Derek Beauregard, Brayden Richard, Steve Sandoval and Pete LeBelle. Gardner will field a varsity team plus a middle school team.

“We believe that by next year we’ll have three levels of baseball including a junior varsity team,” Sylvester said. “Last year’s JV team, coached by Mark Bartkus did a fantastic job and we’re looking to build off that this year.”

This article originally appeared on Gardner News: Tony Sylvester at the helm of newly instated Gardner varsity baseball