Nick Santomauro '10 may be a newcomer to the Dartmouth baseball team, but he's certainly raised more than a few eyebrows. Batting .420 in 81 at-bats, Santomauro is second in the Ivy League in batting, and one of two players still hitting above .400.
Such success at the collegiate level doesn't come without years of practice, and Santomauro certainly has had that. He started playing baseball when he was just three years old.
"My dad put a wiffle ball bat in my hand and told me to swing," the freshman said of his introduction to the game. Santomauro's father also grew up around the game. He was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds out of college, and again by the New York Mets after he blew out his knee, but never saw a professional diamond.
Santomauro was a self-described "little guy" throughout Little League. He played a variety of positions but couldn't find his niche, and never became a standout player. Santomauro moved around the diamond, settling in at third base when he began playing on a regulation size field in middle school.
Hailing from North Caldwell, N.J., Santomauro attended West Essex High School, a school not known as a baseball powerhouse in the state. He again changed positions when he entered high school, becoming a first baseman his freshman year, and later moving to the outfield his junior year.
Santomauro enjoyed modest success throughout high school, batting .379 for his career, and .350 his senior season with six home runs. It was during that season that No. 15-seed West Essex Knights upset No. 1-seed Seton Hall Prep en route to their first ever Greater Newark Tournament Championship. In that game, Santomauro faced Rick Porcello, a pitcher widely compared to Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers.
Santomauro's performance throughout high school was certainly enough to garner the attention of several Division I schools, including Cornell and Yale, scholarship offers from Rutgers and Seton Hall, and a full ride from St. Joseph's. Like many athletes wearing the Big Green, Santomauro cited the balance between academics and athletics, as well as the success in previous years of the Dartmouth baseball program, as his primary motivation for choosing to come to Hanover. He emphasized that the recent shortcomings of the baseball team have not made him regret this decision.
"There's no disappointment. I know it's a young team and I know we just haven't gelled yet, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season."
Since arriving, Santomauro said that the time commitment - 18 hours of practice and games per week plus traveling time - has consumed most of his free time at Dartmouth. Santomauro spends most of his days with the members of the team, who he describes as very supportive.
"They have their roots already established and they have a lot of connections already, so it's definitely a plus knowing all the upperclassmen right off the bat like that. They're guys that make me want to play with them."
Santomauro also spoke highly of coach Bob Whalen, who is in his 18th season at Dartmouth.
"He's a good guy. He's real dedicated to winning, he knows what he wants to do and how to accomplish it, and I admire him for that," Santomauro said. "He's a really good coach and he's helped me along the way."
Santomauro added that while his power hitting numbers have decreased under the Whalen's coaching, his consistency has improved. Indeed, Santomauro is yet to hit a home run this season, but also leads the team in strikeouts.
While Santomauro saw some of the best pitching in the country in prep school, he says that one of the biggest differences between high school and collegiate baseball is the quality of the pitching.
"The average pitcher is just that much better. There's still that guy that will blow you away, there's still that guy that will dominate you, but the average level has gone up a lot. It's not the two extremes that have changed that much."
If the average level of pitching has gone up, Santomauro's performance at the plate has grown even faster, and his confidence matches. He has won Ivy League Co-Rookie of the Week once this season already. At the end of the fall baseball season, all of the players meet individually with the coaching staff and discuss their goals for the season. Santomauro would not disclose exactly what he anticipated his batting average this season to be, only that he "set his goal a little too unrealistically," and that his current average was "pretty close to it."
"Oh yeah, I'm surprised about [my success]," he said. "As a freshman you can't expect to be leading the team in average, but I'm just happy to contribute."
