From Football to Baseball (Part II)

OK, I've procrastinated enough. Time for Part II of our series of New England/Ivy League college football players who went on to play Major League Baseball. Part I can be found here.

You probably know all about Harvard "beating" Yale 29-29 in the 1968 season finale in a battle of undefeated teams. But did you know the guy who caught the "winning" 2-point conversion was a baseball player? Pete Varney was a tight end on the football team and a catcher on the baseball team, where he batted .370 lifetime (still third on the all-time list) and was a first-team All-American at a school not known for its baseball exploits. Varney went on to play parts of three seasons with the Chicago White Sox and the Atlanta Braves. He later coached tag Brandeis University, where he won 705 games over 34 years.

Pete Varney, right, with old-school Coke can in hand, congratulates
Harvard QB Frank Champi after the Crimson's celebrated 29-29 tie with Yale in 1968.

Varney with the Chicago White Sox in the mid-1970s.

A search through Baseball-Reference reveals not one, but three guys named Mark Johnson who played in MLB between 1995-2008. The one we want is a native of Worcester, Mass., who was a first baseman-outfielder for the Pirates, Angels and Mets from 1995-2002. His second year with the Pirates (1996) was his best one, when he played a career-high 127 games and batted .274 with 13 homers. (I'll save the analytics for other sites.)

But on the gridiron, the left-handed Johnson was the starting quarterback at Dartmouth, where his name still dots the top 10 on many of the Big Green's passing lists despite playing only three seasons. He also played first base, right field and even pitched for the baseball team.

(Funny aside: Johnson's Wikipedia bio is probably longer than those of many Baseball Hall of Famers.)

Mark Johnson with coach Buddy Teevens c. 1988. (GET WELL BUDDY!!)
The caption is a reference to Johnson declining a Pirates contract offer
in 1989 in order to return to Dartmouth for his senior year. He signed with the Pirates in '90.

Johnson's 1995 Upper Deck baseball card.
I recall blowing $75 on an unopened box in '95 ...
only to buy the whole set for $25 a decade later.

Ah, the nomadic career of a left-handed relief pitcher. Ron Villone pitched 15 years in MLB, one for every team that employed him. OK, I exaggerate, but not by much; he took the mound for 12 different teams, never lasting more than two seasons with any one club. (He pitched three seasons for Seattle, but that was over two stints.) Amazingly, he's only tied for third for most MLB teams; Octavio Dotel and Edwin Jackson played for 13 each.

At UMass, the 6-foot-3, 245-pound Villone was a third-team All-American pitcher in 1992. But the oddity about Villone is that he was recruited to play football; according to this article, the baseball coach asked him to they out for baseball upon hearing about his 90-mph fastball.

Villone was certainly no slouch on the gridiron, where he was an all-Yankee Conference selection at tight end in 1990 and '91. He caught 47 passes for 651 yards and four TDs during his time at Amherst. 

Ron Villone, the football player: Intense.

Ron Villone, the pitcher: Also intense.
Here he is in his minor league days.

Mark DeRosa was in the news earlier this year for managing Team USA to a silver medal in the World Baseball Classic. Before that (and before he was bouncing off the walls every day on MLB Network) he played infield (and occasionally outfield) for eight MLB teams from 1998-2013. 

And before that, he was a killer quarterback at Penn who led the Quakers to Ivy League titles in 1994 and '95 — including an undefeated season in '94 — throwing for 3,895 yards and 25 touchdowns. DeRosa also played shortstop on the baseball team, and he signed with the Atlanta Braves following his junior season (he continued to attend class at Penn and earned his degree in 1997).

This 1994 Daily Pennsylvanian article highlights Mark DeRosa's
performance in the season-ending win over Cornell
that gave the Quakers an undefeated season. 

DeRosa (with awesome throwback jersey)
with the Atlanta Braves.