La Salle baseball is coming back. Here’s what some former Explorers think about it.

Gabriel Rappa was in his off-campus house preparing for the upcoming fall semester at La Salle. It was 2020, and the left-handed pitcher was entering his sophomore season when he received a message stating that the baseball team needed to be on a Zoom meeting in 20 minutes.

“I assumed it was protocol of the school year coming up,” Rappa said. “I thought it was the regulations of [COVID-19] and masks for the La Salle athletes and all stuff like that.”

During the meeting, they were given the news: La Salle was cutting its baseball program and six other sports. The 2021 season was going to be their last season as a team.

“All of us just in shock, and some people were in shambles. Some people were aggravated. Some people physically spoke their mind,” Rappa said. “It was a crazy Zoom call.”

Pitcher Colin Scanlon, who had just started his senior year, also was on the call. He said he and his teammates were left questioning if the team’s success had anything to do with it at first.

“We were a little taken aback by it,” Scanlon said. “We got to ask our questions, too, when we got on a separate Zoom call with our athletic director, Brian Baptiste. There was a lot of [beating] around the bush. It felt like we were still in search for the real answers.”

For Rappa, the frustration stemmed from the uncertainty beyond the 2021 season. He said despite the many attempts to save the program, including a pizza review in collaboration with Dave Portnoy from Barstool sports, it seemed like nothing they did helped.

“When you’re 18 years old and you pick a college, you assume you’re going to be there for four years or even five years,” Rappa said. “When your program for a sport you played your whole life gets cut, and you’re doing everything you possibly can to save it, it seems like you’re just going to dead ends. It’s really frustrating.”

Four years later, things have changed. Rappa, Scanlon, and many of 2021 Explorers have finished their college baseball careers. On May 22, it’ll have been three years since the Explorers’ final game in 2021. The university has parted ways with the administration that made the decision. And, on April 17, La Salle announced its decision to reinstate their baseball program while adding four new sports.

“The new administration at the school has done a great job of thinking creatively of ways they can grow things,” said former pitcher James Santore. “President Dan Allen and the new AD, Ashwin Puri, have done such a great job of, ‘Hey, here are the issues that we see. Here’s the ways we can fix it.’ And he’s brought in the right resources of how we can get stuff done. I’m personally really happy with the way administration’s handling things and the future outlook of the school. And, again, I’m so happy that baseball is a part of that.”

Santore, who pitched at La Salle from 2013 to 2015, spearheaded attempts to save the program in 2020-21.

“It was really just trying to bring awareness,” Santore said. “It didn’t make sense. It was unfair to those kids that worked so hard to get there. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, but it was pretty amazing to see what they were able to do on the field to, again, take that last year of La Salle baseball prior and make something special out of it.”

The Explorers finished that final season with a school-record 32 wins. Rappa and two of his teammates transferred to West Chester to finish their college careers, carrying their experience with them — as well as lingering questions.

“We had a blast playing the sport that we love there. Finishing out together, it was definitely fun,” Rappa said. “But we still always had those talks of, ‘What if we stayed? What if this happened?’ All the what ifs.”

Dennis Burge, who played at La Salle from 2004 to 2009, said bringing back the program also brings back the opportunity for him to introduce his two sons to an integral part of his college experience.

His wife, Danielle, also is a La Salle alumna and played volleyball, one of the other sports that was cut in 2020. For many years, they thought they would never be able to give their kids a glimpse at their sports at their alma mater.

“It’ll be a cool experience, them getting to see where me and their mom went to school, where we met, where we played sports, and then they can see the field that I played on,” Burge said.

Some Explorers who were on the 2021 team have more complicated feelings about the university’s decision.

“It’s kind of a love-hate. I mean, I love that they’re bringing the program back. I feel like it deserves to be back,” Rappa said. “Now that some of us are too old or don’t have eligibility, that’s the frustrating part about it.”

» READ MORE: Colin Yablonski once battled St. Joe’s with La Salle. Now the Hawks are his teammates.

Beyond athletics, Santore believes there’s a practical benefit to bringing back baseball.

“They built a new business school. Having a 35-man roster of baseball players, that like 75% of them will be going to that business school, is of the utmost importance,” Santore said. “It really reinforces the student body, and it’s a necessity right now. So athletic programs are not only a great brand for the school, but also a really great student body.”

Scanlon, Rappa, Burge, and Santore agreed that they’re looking forward to attending a few games during the team’s opening season in spring 2025.

“I think it’s going to bring back an entire culture to the school that I thought was important when we were there,” Scanlon said.

“I feel like it’ll be a little bit of a process kind of building a strong team, because I imagine as a high school kid trying to get recruited, your first option isn’t a team that it’s their first year playing,” he continued. “I think it might take a little while to rebuild and really compete, but I think it’s really exciting. And I think it won’t take very long.”