VERONICA YANKOWSKI Milltown’s Brett Cumiskey, a Spotswood High School graduate, enjoyed a very successful season playing pro baseball in Australia, and is now hoping to land a minor league contract in his attempt to further his baseball career.
Brett Cumiskey has always considered himself a late bloomer when it comes to baseball, which is why at the age of 25, the Milltown resident and former standout player at Spotswood High School and Middlesex College isn’t ready to give up his dream. Not yet, anyway.
Like countless others who have ever swung a bat, Cumiskey aspires to make it to the big leagues some day.
He’s carried that dream with him as long as he can remember — "since I was a little kid playing T-ball," Cumiskey said of his lifelong desire to play in the major leagues. "I just love swinging the bat and hitting the ball."
He’s been doing a lot of that lately, too. In fact, Cumiskey just returned home from Australia where he played for the Ainslie Bears of Canberra the past six months in the Australia Capital Territory (ACT) Baseball League.
"It’s an off-season international league comparable to lower minor leagues," Cumiskey pointed out. "They play one or two games a week from October to March."
To say Cumiskey had a successful season would be an understatement. Playing shortstop, all he did was bat a robust .456, hit seven home runs and drive in 32 runs in 35 games to capture the league’s triple crown. He also led the ACT with a .919 slugging percentage, made the all-star team and was a candidate for the league MVP.
"I was one of the few players over there to use a wooden bat, too," Cumiskey, one of only three non-Australian "draftees" on the team, said. "I chose wood because I figured I would get more exposure using a wooden bat. I surprisingly did pretty well on the power side."
Cumiskey even hit a long homer in the ACT Grand Final, which the Bears lost to the Tuggeranong Vikings in two straight games.
But anyone who saw Cumiskey play during his days at Spotswood High, where he was an All-County player and hit 20 career home runs, including 10 as a senior, isn’t surprised by his power at the plate.
Following his graduation in 1995, he went on to play at Middlesex College, a Division III junior college, where he hit .420 with nine more homers and earned All-American honors in his only season there.
"I was planning to play the following season, too," he said, "but my father lost his job so I went to work to help out with the bills."
The abrupt interruption in his career, especially after an outstanding freshman season, may have cost Cumiskey a shot at getting drafted.
"I don’t regret helping out the family," he said, "but I do regret not playing. If I played another year or two and continued to progress, I think I would’ve gotten a shot."
Cumiskey took most of 1997 and ’98 off, but even while he worked, he continued to play summer baseball "here and there," he says. The offers, however, weren’t there.
"When you take a couple of years off, it’s tough to get connections," he explained. "When the Atlantic League was formed, I had tryouts with the Newark Bears, the Somerset Patriots and the Atlantic City Surf, as well as a few other independent league teams. But not having any professional experience in my background made it kind of tough."
So Cumiskey decided to do something about it.
"I went over to Italy for three months last year to work out for scouts," he said. "I had a connection through a friend in Vegas who had a cousin coaching in Italy."
Cumiskey hooked up with the Codogno Club of the Italian Professional League, but wasn’t eligible to play in league games because of his non-citizen status.
By now Cumiskey was used to running into roadblocks, and rather than get discouraged, he made the best of the situation. He actually did play in a couple of non-league games against Switzerland, and he helped coached in the playoffs.
More important, however, the trip to Italy also led to playing in Australia.
"When I was working out for the scouts in Italy, they told me I should go to Australia and play there. They said it would probably be good competition for me, and I was confident I was capable of playing at that level," he asserted.
Cumiskey took their advice and then took the ACT by storm. In a game against the Bandits at Majura, he belted back-to-back home runs in the fourth and fifth innings to key a 12-8 win by Ainslie.
Then against the Tuggeranong Vikings, the eventual league champs, Cumiskey hit a grand slam as the Bears rallied from a 6-1 deficit to win 8-6.
Even though he played mostly shortstop, Cumiskey even saw a little action on the mound.
"I pitched in three or four games and even started a couple of games," he said with a laugh. "I pitched in my younger days, so I was going back to my childhood instincts when I was on the mound.
"I actually went to Australia to catch, and I was behind the plate in my first game there, but that was the only game I caught. They said they needed me at shortstop more. I told them I’d play ‘wherever you need me — infield, outfield or DH.’ "
That kind of attitude, as well as his ability with a bat, made Cumiskey an instant hit Down Under.
"It was a lot of fun and we had a great season," he said of his time in Canberra, the Australian capital. "The team I played for hadn’t made the playoffs in nine years, and we went all the way to the finals. Having American players come over there was a big thing for them. The imports are making the sport in Australia more recognizable for younger players over there."
For Cumiskey, it was also a chance to keep his dream alive. It certainly wasn’t for the money, since he didn’t get paid.
"When I wasn’t playing, I was doing security work over there to make some money," he said.
A great deal of good came out of the six months Cumiskey spent there. It got him the experience and exposure he needed, and his agent has been in contact with several teams, including the Reading Phillies Double A team in the Eastern League, professional teams in Italy and Switzerland, and even the San Diego Padres organization.
"When I was in Australia, I worked out for a Padres scout who coaches out there, and he was pushing me to go play for an independent league team this season," Cumiskey said. "Now that I have some professional experience, some people are giving me a look."
In fact, Cumiskey has four or five invitations from pro teams to attend their tryouts over the next month, mostly from independent league teams.
"If I can get in there, it would be a first step and I’ll take it from there," he said. "My last tryout is May 8 in Illinois with the Cooke County Cheetahs of the Frontier League. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll fly out to Switzerland and play there this summer, and then in October go back to Australia."
But Cumiskey also knows that at 25, time may be rapidly be running out for him to see his dream fulfilled.
"I don’t want to give myself a timetable, but I know there are only a couple of years left if I’m going to do something," he admitted. "I’ve done a lot in just the last nine months between playing in Italy and Australia, so maybe I am a late bloomer.
"But I still have that dream, and you got to push yourself. You always go back to the sport. If you love the sport and the game, you always go back and give it another shot," he affirmed.