John Pacella grew up in Oakdale and graduated from Connetquot High School in 1974. Excelling in three seasons of varsity baseball, Pacella was splendid on the pitching mound, with a 21-4 record for the Thunderbirds. Post-graduation, Major League Baseball echoed Pacella’s name as the Mets drafted him in the 1974 MLB draft. One of the preeminent Mets’ prospects, he continued to shine on the diamond with a 3.78 ERA, earning 401 strikeouts in four seasons in the Mets’ minor league farm system.

On his 21st birthday, he was brought up to the show, making his debut with the New York Mets in 1977. Pacella pitched for the Mets in 1977, 1979, and 1980 and for the Yankees in 1982. Pacella also pitched for the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, and Detroit Tigers and played ball in Japan for the Tokyo Giants. Pacella played a total of 15 seasons of pro baseball, combining in both the major and minor leagues. Post-retirement, Pacella became a coach and pitching instructor in Ohio, where he currently resides, at Big League Baseball School,. Currently, Pacella and former major leaguer Dan Briggs are the owners of Big League Baseball School and have run the facility for 28 years. 

Pacella took the time to chat with the Suffolk County News:

Suffolk County News: You attended Connetquot High School then you were drafted by the Mets. Were you a Mets fan growing up and how did it feel to be drafted by the hometown team?

Pacella: I was from Oakdale. I was born in Brooklyn. When I was a kid, we got out of the city and went out to the island when there was one road going out there, so I was pretty fortunate I went to Connetquot High School. At the time, the scouts had a hard time getting there; they always complained about how to find it (laughs). I was a Yankees fan when I was a kid. Either my neighbors or my old man would take me to the Yankees games.  And I, my dad, my uncles, we would watch the Yankees games on TV. When I got drafted by the Mets right out of high school, it all went away immediately. It was now, ‘Hey, I’m with the Mets,’ and I was fortunate enough to play for both teams. For a young kid like me from Brooklyn to be out at Connetquot and play for both New York teams in the big leagues, when you think back on it, I was pretty fortunate.

SCN: In June 1980, you earned your first career big league win vs. the eventual world series champion Phillies and beat that year’s Cy Young winner Steve Carlton, and you also struck out that year’s MVP Mike Schmidt twice! Talk about that experience. 

Pacella: You always remember that. I pitched obviously in the big leagues a little bit before that. I got called up here and there with the Mets and battled my way through the minors. We had a lot of prospects, but when Joe Torre told me, ‘I’m putting you in the rotation,’ as a kid when you’re in your 20s, when I went out to pitch against the Phillies that day, there’s no, oh I’m pitching today. I was just like, rock ‘n’ roll, here we go, another start for me. And it was even then, after the game was over, it was crazy because where they were and they won the series that year, Carlton facing him and facing that lineup. I pitched so many games—I guess a couple of a thousand innings in the minors and big leagues, but I could remember almost every pitch of that game out of all the games I’ve pitched. And I can remember standing on the mound and the first time I’m facing Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski and those guys, and my right leg was buckling a little bit, and I had to step off a couple of times; that’s because I was like, ok, I’ve done this before but this is a different game right now! But until later on in your life, like now and years later after you’re done playing, you think back and you go, wow! I guess that was pretty good (laughs). It just doesn’t dawn on you too much when you’re a player. It’s pretty much more exciting later on talking about it.

SCN: In the Yankees’ minor league system with the Columbus Clippers, you were teammates with Don Mattingly, Dave Righetti, Buck Showalter. Can you talk about being teammates when they were just beginning their professional careers?

Pacella: Yeah, it was exciting for us because I got traded from the San Diego Padres until almost the last week of spring training in a five-player deal, and I already was in the big leagues. As we were coming through the minor leagues, Dave Righetti and I were roommates. We were good friends; he stayed with me in the wintertime a little bit and he’s a great guy. Showalter had an old beat-up Camaro at the time, so he was driving me around, so this is when we were all knuckleheads, too (laughs). None of us had really done anything, and I was thinking even when I was in the Yankees’ minor league system, looking at the pitchers, it went Righetti, Gene Nelson, Mike Morgan. Guys were going, Holy Christmas! They got a better staff than I just left in San Diego in Triple A! I was with the Clippers for one year and we won the Governor’s Cup in 1981, and that was the year of the strike and so actually, it was a little fortunate for me because even though I got sent to Triple A, I had a two-year major league contract, so I was pretty fortunate because they were on strike in the big leagues, so they were covering all our games. It was the year in Columbus where we won the Governor’s Cup for the third-straight year.

SCN: What advice would you give to a young kid reading this who wants to play baseball?

Pacella: Well, everybody has different answers and if you’re a kid, try a couple of different sports, too; you don’t have to only focus on baseball. There’s an evolution in life and there’s a little luck that’s involved in it, and if you keep at it and work on it, you’ll move ahead according to really the evolution of your life and your body and size and how your abilities go. But nobody has a crystal ball and I used to tell parents that all the time. I was in the big leagues with five different teams, and there wasn’t one guy that I played with in the major leagues that wasn’t once 10 years old. So don’t tell him he’s not gonna do this, he’s not gonna do that, just let him evolve. Confidence is the whole game. If you don’t have confidence in anything you do, you’re done. I’ve trained thousands of kids and I’d say, here’s my tip: confidence. You need to be confident. Off the field, I don’t want you to kill a bug; you’re humble, but when you cross over that white line, that guy at the plate is trying to hit you. That’s what his job is. Your job is trying to get him out; that’s your job. Now when you’re out there, your confidence is gonna be what makes you good. So, it’s gonna be something you’re gonna have to really dig deep about. You gotta soul search. You gotta have good confidence in order to be good and that’s at every level, especially the major league level, but even at the youth level. I used to tell them, ‘What’s the word of the day?’ And they’d look at me and go, ‘Confidence, coach!’ And I’d say, ‘That’s right. Confidence in what we’re doing. We’ll get it done. You just get the guy out.’ I used to tell the parents, leave ‘em alone just give them confidence so you can talk about it after the game; don’t try and coach ‘em if you don’t know what you’re doing, because that’s dangerous. Let us do our jobs, and they need fundamentals. Every sport has fundamentals. The best fundamentals we can get him when he’s young as he evolves into his body now, we see where he’s going. Whether he’s going to be this big or that big because he’s going to play the position where his body takes him, his size, and his abilities. So that’s going to be the next move, and we don’t know that yet, so just let him roll, get him the training, get him out on the field. Hopefully, they do well and have some bit of success because that’ll build their confidence. It’s, do the best you can with what you’re doing and just go out there, whether you’re a hitter or a pitcher, do the best you can, play with confidence, be a good teammate to the guys, be the guy they to be around, be a leader, and then if it’s meant to be and your game evolves, it will. That’s the way it works.