WETHERSFIELD – Tom Righi had no idea his son would be a baseball player, one day headed to play the sport at UConn.
When he was born, Tom and his wife liked the name “Cam” and decided “Camden” would be his official name.
“Like Camden Yards,” Tom said Thursday at Wethersfield High baseball practice.
The choice was strictly coincidental, he said, and not baseball related at all.
Cam Righi is a 6-foot-3 sophomore catcher for the Eagles’ baseball team, which advanced to the Class L state tournament quarterfinals last season and will open their season Monday against Northwest Catholic. High school spring sports season opens Saturday for many other schools.
Righi, who batted .354 and had 18 RBIs, six doubles and two home runs last season, committed to play baseball at UConn last summer, after his freshman year.
“It’s always been my desire – to play D1 baseball – and UConn gave me the chance,” he said. “I get to stay near home and play the game I love.”
Wethersfield coach Mark Bagdasarian said Righi is so athletic, he could play wherever he is needed on the field. Last fall he was the starting quarterback for the football team, which went 8-3 and advanced to the Class MM quarterfinals; he started playing tackle football in eighth grade.
“You see him on the football field – he could go be the wide receiver and he’d be the best wide receiver on the team,” Bagdasarian said. “If I put him at shortstop, he’d be one of the best shortstops, he’d be a good center fielder. But he loves catching; I think he’s taken to it because of the constant involvement.
“It’s been awesome to watch him grow.”
Indeed, the catcher is essentially the quarterback of the baseball team and that’s why Righi enjoys it so much.
“I like being involved in every play,” he said. “Baseball is a very slow game but not when you’re catching. When you’re catching, there’s no downtime.”
Righi started playing catcher when he was 9. Tom was coaching his Little League team and needed a catcher and asked him if he wanted to move from shortstop. Cam said sure. In his first game he was hit in the glove by the batter on a backswing.
“I was a little too close,” he said. “Something about that made me love it because I kept doing it.”
His father, who helps as a volunteer assistant for Wethersfield High, was an infielder at Springfield College; he didn’t know a lot about catching. He asked a friend who coached at Trinity for advice; the friend told him to send an email to UConn coach Tom Penders, who lives in Wethersfield. Tom had coached Penders’ son in youth baseball so he reached out.
“I wrote, ‘Hey, Coach Penders, Tom Righi, you might remember me from a couple years ago, my son wants to know about catching, is there anyone you recommend?’” Tom said. “Within five minutes, he wrote back to me – ‘Send me your address, I’m going to send you videos.’ It was amazing. He didn’t know us and for someone to reach out like that, that always stuck with me, and Cam too.”
They watched the videos. They worked together. Cam started playing travel ball at a high level and after he went to a showcase in Georgia, the inquiries from colleges started coming in.
“(Cam)’s gotten way beyond me,” Tom said. “I pick things up as I go. That’s the other thing that’s nice about it – I never played catcher. He gets to be the boss or the teacher or the expert. It’s not like he’s following in my footsteps. We’re kind of peers when we talk about it. It’s not me just talking at him. It’s a nice dynamic.”
Cam’s demeanor is not like anyone else in his family.
“His strength is where most people have extreme highs and lows – and it’s such an unforgiving game – Cam stays smooth,” Tom said. “The more intense the situation, the smoother and flatter his heart rate goes.
“He’s the exact opposite of me. I was very high, a yeller. There’s just a quiet strength about him; he stays calm, cool and collected, that’s his biggest strength. My wife is up there with me and my daughter is kind of like that too and we’re all going nuts and he’s kind of calm, just listening, taking it all in.”
Wethersfield has only a few seniors and juniors and is made up of mostly sophomores.
“I think our team is going to be tough,” Cam said. “We’re a young team but we’re going to give every single team we play a run for their money. No one is going to feel comfortable playing us.”