The 2021 season was certainly a challenging one for anyone running a professional baseball team. But for the Somerset Patriots, there were additional challenges outside the normal course of events. For his leadership during an eventful season, Patriots president/general manager Patrick McVerry is the Ballpark Digest Executive of the Year for 2021.
Challenge 1: Shift from the independent Atlantic League to affiliated ball as the Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. Challenge 2: Address the ballpark upgrades required by Major League Baseball after its takeover of Minor League Baseball. Challenge 3: Maintain steady leadership after the loss of team owners Steve Kalafer right before the beginning of the season. Challenge 4: Run an operation with initial limited capacity due to COVID-19. Challenge 5: Deal with a flooded ballpark near the end of the season--and turn that situation into a fundraiser for the local community. We discuss each of these situations with McVerry in this hour-long podcast.
Jesse Goldberg-Strassler is Voice of the Lansing Lugnuts and author of The Baseball Thesaurus and the upcoming second edition of The Football Thesaurus, both from August Publications. Kevin Reichard is editor of Ballpark Digest and founder/publisher at August Publications.