A story that's far from over: Vince Guglietti and his path to the Major Leagues

At 7:05 a.m. on Friday, May 13, the Gateway Grizzlies open their season against the Washington Wild Things. The site: GCS Ballpark in Sauget, Illinois. On the roster: Vincent Guglietti, a strapping 6’5” 230-pound first baseman from East Haven, CT.

It isn’t where Guglietti expected to be last June as he wrapped up a spectacular career at Quinnipiac College, helping to transform a basement-dwelling MAAC conference school into a perennial title contender.

Half the teams in Major League Baseball had contacted the smooth-fielding first baseman. All of them had seen his explosive swing. Seattle and San Diego had shown particular interest.

No surprise. Guglietti had boasted a career average of .307 at Quinnipiac with 16 homers and 216 hits. His 105 RBIs were the most by any current player on the roster. In his senior year alone, he hit .330 with ten homers and 47 RBIs, leading the Division I MAAC conference in slugging and among the conference leaders in on-base percentage and total bases.

Not only that. For the past two summers, he had played in the New England Collegiate Baseball League, a showcase for top college-level players, earning notice from scouts from around the country and finishing runner-up to the eventual Player of the Year.

Above all was his work ethic. “He sets himself to a higher standard,” his college coach told the Quinnipiac Record. He had spent hours in the weight room and in the battle cage honing his swing. He had become a vocal leader for a young infield. “The kid has put in the work and has gotten himself seen.”

Area papers compared him to Connecticut-bred Major League players Matt Harvey and George Springer. “His consistency at the plate makes him a near-lock to be selected in June’s amateur draft,” the New Haven Register reported.

Then came June 10, 2015. The first two days of the Major League Baseball draft had come and gone; teams would be selecting players from round 11 through round 40.

That wasn’t unexpected. Vince had been told that he would be drafted between the 12th and 18th rounds. All day he waited for his phone to ring.

It didn’t, and this is where the story of Vince Guglietti really begins. It’s a story of steely determination and grit fueled by a quiet but abiding belief that his natural talent and hard work will eventually lead to the call that he didn’t get on June 10, 2015.

And it’s a story that’s far from over.

I.

Let’s go back to the summer of 2015, to those weeks after the June day Vince’s phone didn’t ring.

First he looked for answers. What he found was dispiriting. The scouts who had pushed for his selection were low in the organization. That didn’t matter if the big guys said no. The Phillies had him slotted high, he learned, but the higher-ups wouldn’t take a shot.

The reason: the product of working-class East Haven didn’t know the right people. He lacked the family connections with a scout high in the organization that might oil his way into even a lower-round draft pick.

Someone who scouted for the Braves in the 1990s told him that scouting today is different. Back then, if someone looked promising, he was in. Nowadays, you have to know people, he was told.

Even then, two threads that would run through Vince’s story were beginning to appear. One was the willingness of someone to go out on a limb to rectify Vince’s lack of connections—specifically, that former scout who offered to get him a tryout with the Texas Rangers and possibly the Houston Astors.

The other: Vince’s extraordinary belief in himself. “I wouldn’t waste my time if I didn’t know I could play,” he told me. “I have too much left in my tank to throw it away. I haven’t reached a level I know I can reach. I have a support system telling me not to give up. I’m not going to.”

(to be continued...)