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By BOB NOCEK; Times Leader Hazleton Sports Editor
Sunday, May 12, 1996     Page:

Jeff Antolick was teammates with minor leaguers whose futures had passed
them by.
   
“But even those guys think they still have an outside shot,” he said. “You
want to tell them, `No offense, but it’s time to give it up and move on.’ ”
    Antolick, 25 years old and headed to the independent Northern League,
insists he’s not one of those guys.
   
“I don’t think I’m at that point,” he said. “Maybe I’m fooling myself, but
I don’t think I am.”
   
This will be Antolick’s first season outside the New York Yankees’ farm
system since they drafted him in 1992. They released him last year, and
shoulder surgery followed in September to remove scar tissue. It was his
second operation in two years.
   
That was significant enough for five minor league teams to pass up Antolick
after tryouts, although the Baltimore Orioles pushed for his shot at the
Northern League.
   
Their faith helps him believe that he’s still got a shot.
   
“I’m not a guy trying to beat a dead horse and continue his career for
three or four years,” he said. “I think I’m looking at things realistically,
in the sense that I can go out and prove that I’m healthy and get back.”
   
Antolick knows that the league’s three-year history has only produced three
major leaguers, but he also knows that 100 Northern League players have been
picked up by major league farm systems. Any number of those players could wind
up in the majors eventually.
   
But after reaching Class AA last year with the Norwich Navigators, Antolick
won’t walk away from the game without exhausting all the possibilities.
   
He’s just not done yet.
   
“I have to prove this to myself,” he said. “I have to exhaust every
opportunity that I have. Ten years from now, I don’t want to be sitting back
in my chair thinking, `Jeez, you did have that chance to pitch in the
independent league, and who knows what might have happened?’ I have to prove
to myself whether I’m healthy or not healthy. And then I’ll continue on with
the rest of my life.”