James Santore wasn’t sure how to best channel his emotions, so he sent a tweet.
It was the last week of September, days after La Salle University announced it would cut seven varsity programs, including baseball. Santore, a South Jersey native and 2016 grad, and fellow baseball alumni were gathering in crisis mode, trying to devise how to best turn anger into action.
While rallying for virtual meetings and laying the groundwork for fundraising, Santore took to Twitter. A business administration major working in the burgeoning sports betting industry, Santore tweeted at Dave Portnoy, the founder of the controversial but popular Barstool Sports. He explained La Salle baseball’s situation and got a simple response broadcast to Portnoy’s 1.8 million followers: “What I gotta do?”
That tweet put into motion a visit to campus last week, which has offered national visibility for a community fighting for its survival.
Santore got the notification that Portnoy was interested while golfing with friends, as much a surprise as it was a thrill.
“It was a pretty special moment to be with my friends for that, and everything kind of went from there,” Santore said. “So we were like, OK this is real, how do we best use this to help the program and get us publicity? His retweets really helped get the word out about our cause and saving the program, and people started to reach out trying to help us, more than just the publicity side. It was a complete shock.”
Portnoy’s visit garnered national attention for La Salle baseball and local television interest. (There was plenty of synergy in it for Portnoy: Barstool last month launched a sportsbook app in Pennsylvania, and Portnoy spent part of the week recording his popular pizza reviews at a number of area hotspots, including La Salle haunt, The Explorers Den.)
Portnoy’s legions of fans have magnified what La Salle baseball players have been laboring at behind the scenes on the local level.
“That’s the part that’s overwhelming,” said Kevin McGowan, a 2019 La Salle grad and the 2015 Daily Times Baseball Player of the Year from Haverford School. “His fanbase is so spread out across the country, and these people are contacting me saying, ‘you’ve got my support, Dave sent us, we’re happy to support you.’ I had someone say they came from Dave’s page and his oldest son was in t-ball so he’s looking up to us and he dreams of playing Division I baseball.
“It’s awesome, the amount of people that have contacted us saying that they’re supporting just because of him. That’s what we wanted, but to see that actually happen is nuts.”
The Barstool bump compounds what the Save La Salle Baseball leaders have done. The effort is led by Santore, McGowan and Joe Ravert, a Havertown native who played at Malvern Prep, graduating in 2016 to a brief pro career. More than 50 alums convened on Zoom days after the cuts. The Instagram account started by McGowan, @savelasallebaseball, has grown to more than 2,700 followers, plus a mailing list and a GoFundMe campaign.
Santore and McGowan have heard not just from former players but from their sons and daughter, even grandsons and granddaughters, testifying as to what the program meant.
“It’s been amazing,” Santore said. “I think it’s great because you meet so many people part of the same program, part of the same family, and now you get to work together to save the program, it’s really special. I’ve really enjoyed meeting a lot of these people and working with them.”
“It’s just coming natural to us because we’ve been on the same team,” McGowan said. “We’ve all taken some really bad losses and we’ve won some really big games together, so we have that built into our nature. These guys, because of that, they’re so thankful that we have their back and we know they’re out there showing support and spreading it around. It’s just like one big team still and it’s really like a family.”
Among the highlights for Santore was meeting members of the 1985 team, which made the NCAA tournament and still holds the program record for single-season wins. One of the players gave Santore his 35th-anniversary pin, from a ceremony in January, as a reminder of what they’re fighting to save. “He said, I want you to have this,” Santore said. “I want you to always look at this whenever you’re thinking about what to do to get this program back.”
The core group of Santore, Ravert and McGowan understand the family underpinning La Salle baseball. McGowan, Sun Valley’s CJ Pruitt and Garnet Valley’s Ben Faso were 2015 All-Delcos who matriculated to La Salle. Ravert, Santore and McGowan all played for Narberth in the Delco League, alongside numerous La Salle mates, including senior shortstop Tommy Toal, a leading representative of the current players to save the program.
Those connections mean recent alums appreciate how disorienting the moment is for the undergrads. Involving Portnoy and Barstool isn’t just a way of amplifying the message but also buoying the spirits of those battling.
“We kind of understand what they’re going through, we understand what their mindset is, so we want to provide them something that can make them feel a little bit better and give them hope,” Santore said. “What we want to be able to do is give them hope. I think no matter what happens, we’ll have that lasting memory of La Salle baseball, and hopefully we can bring this program back, but that was a special day for those guys. And they’re all trying to figure out their next steps right now. They’ve had something they’ve worked their whole lives for taken away and that’s difficult.
“But at the same time, from an emotional perspective, you can’t even think about it. You have to keep working, keep trying to make something happen, and that’s what we’re doing.”
