WEST ORANGE, N.J. -- Rick Porcello blossomed from a can't-miss prospect into a Gatorade National Player of the Year into a first-round Draft pick in 2007 on a field known unofficially in North Jersey as Mini Fenway Park. Verducci Field, tucked between foliage and the science building at Seton Hall Preparatory School, sported a left-field fence nearly 33 feet high, but just 280 feet from home plate. The Red Sox's future American League Cy Young Award winner battled that monster long before the green one in Boston.
So, in comparison, Seton Hall Prep's new state-of-the-art baseball facility, dedicated and renamed Porcello Field during a ceremony Monday, could be considered spacious.