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STATE COLLEGE — They’ve spent most of their baseball lives in the same dugout. At times, Sal and Dante Biasi have pitched on the same mound in the same game.

Hazle Township Little League. Hazleton Area High School. And now in college at Penn State, where the two hope to leave their mark on a young roster before taking their shot at the pros.

As the Major League Baseball season opens today, it’s not hard to imagine a day when the brothers will be a part of it.

“I think they both have a chance to pitch for a long time,” Penn State coach Rob Cooper said. “I really do. It won’t shock me if we watch the two of them square off in the big leagues someday. Or on the same team.”

Dante, a freshman starting pitcher who is redshirting while continuing his rehabilitation from elbow surgery, was selected by the Chicago Cubs in the 22nd round of last June’s MLB draft. He chose to head to Penn State instead of signing a pro contract and will be eligible to be drafted again in 2019.

Sal, a junior who tops the Nittany Lions’ rotation this season, hopes to hear his name called this summer as he climbs the national rankings in strikeouts. Entering the spring, the publication Baseball America rated him among 2017 draft prospects as No. 11 overall in the Big Ten and the No. 6 pitcher in the conference.

Combined, the two oldest of Marty and Tina Biasi’s three sons are bringing more baseball recognition to their hometown, following the boost from Hazleton native Joe Maddon leading the Cubs to a historic World Series win last fall.

“Those two, they work together,” said Marty Biasi, who coached his sons in Little League. “They’ll correct each other if they see something. They look out for each other. It makes you proud.”

“They were close growing up,” Tina Biasi said. “It’s great to be able to see them together again.”

Growing as a leader

Until Sal Biasi’s last year at Hazleton Area High School, his future looked to be on the basketball court. A sharp-shooting, 6-foot guard, he was a first-team all-state selection as a senior. Multiple Division I schools were interested in him, mainly in the Ivy and Patriot leagues.

Baseball? He excelled at that, too, but he didn’t pitch regularly in high school until his junior year.

“I always had a good arm, and I knew I could be successful on the mound,” Sal said. “But I didn’t realize how successful I could be until the summer before my senior year on the showcase circuit.”

“Scouts kept calling and talking to me,” he said. “That’s really what swayed my decision from basketball to baseball. I want to play professionally, and with basketball, it would’ve been a little harder.”

Successful basketball seasons in high school meant getting started later on preparing for baseball.

That just meant training harder.

“Sal’s work ethic always amazed me,” Hazleton Area assistant coach Brian Rubasky said. “When he got back (from basketball), just watching him work out was something.”

While simulating game situations, rather than relaxing in between throwing sessions, Sal would keep moving — light jogging and stretching at first, and then running.

“It got to the point that I grabbed a hold of all the other players who were around and just said, ‘Watch this,’” Rubasky said. “This is a guy that is doing everything in his power to be ready for the start of the season. This is dedication. … His work ethic is something we still talk about to players today.”

It carried over to college, where the first words Cooper uses to describe his top right-hander are “super, super competitive.”

A reliever as a freshman in 2015, Sal joined the Penn State rotation as a sophomore and now leads it as a junior. His fastball can reach 95 mph, and scouts have taken notice. Plenty of radar guns followed him as Penn State took early season trips to Texas, North Carolina and California.

Through Thursday’s games, Biasi ranked fifth in the nation in strikeouts per nine innings at 13.67, a mark that leads the Big Ten. In back-to-back starts in March, he struck out 20 — nine against Sacramento State and 11 against Delaware — to set a career high in both games.

“He’s in a good groove,” Dante said. “He’s attacking guys, and it’s fun to watch.”

The biggest difference, according to both Sal and his coach, has been on the mental side.

“Before, when things would go badly — whether it’s an error, a bad call or him not pitching well — he has so much pride that he would have a tough time rising above some of that,” Cooper said.

When Sal took the mound March 24 against Columbia, he had struck out eight by the fifth inning. But things threatened to unravel when Columbia’s top hitter launched a two-out, three-run homer that erased a 2-0 Penn State lead.

Sal responded by retiring the next batter to end the inning. Cooper said he didn’t see his pitcher get frustrated or sulk when he got back to the dugout; instead, Sal offered encouragement to others.

His teammates scored nine runs in the bottom of the inning to get him the win.

It was a scene that might not have happened a season ago. Cooper said his relationship with Sal had been “very, very strained on both sides” at the start of this school year.

“He told me this fall he wanted to be a leader,” Cooper said. “And at that point, I didn’t want him to be a leader. Because he didn’t show what I felt like were leadership qualities. But in the past five months, it’s been great. Right now? He’s as good a leader as I’ve ever been around. Guys listen to him because he’s holding himself accountable first and foremost. I’m just so incredibly proud of him.”

Sal saw it as a learning experience.

“I think it just helped me mature,” he said. “… Sometimes you just need to reevaluate who you are, what you’re doing as a player, and what you need to do better. It’s just being more focused and more prepared every single time I touch a ball.”

Bouncing back

For Dante Biasi, a return to the game will have to wait until next season.

What began in March 2016 as numbness in a finger and tightness in his left forearm was revealed by an MRI to be a serious elbow injury — a tear in the ulnar collateral ligament.

The procedure to fix it — commonly known as Tommy John surgery, after the pitcher who first underwent it — came next. That May, Dante went to the Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine in Florida to have the operation.

Since then, he said he hasn’t had any setbacks in his rehabilitation.

“It’s going pretty good,” Dante said. “Just started throwing off the mound a little over a month ago. That’s getting there. A couple more weeks here, and I’ll start ramping it back up to 100 percent. I’m happy with where I’m at.”

Because of the injury, Dante also missed nearly all of his senior season at Hazleton Area. Entering that spring, the scouting service Perfect Game USA rated him as Pennsylvania’s No. 5 overall high school prospect and the No. 26 left-handed pitcher nationally.

He had been named league MVP by Wyoming Valley Conference coaches as a sophomore in 2014, a year that culminated with him and his brother combining on a shutout that earned Hazleton Area the District 2 Class 4A championship.

Cougars head coach Gino Cara said after that season that the two helped build a foundation for the program’s future.

A strong showing the next year at a baseball showcase event in Jupiter, Fla., cemented Dante’s status as a prospect to watch in the 2016 draft.

The injury complicated matters, but it wasn’t the end of the line, by any means.

Citing research by doctors at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, a 2015 Sports Illustrated report said that roughly 80 percent of first-time Tommy John patients are able to return to their pre-surgical level of performance — and sometimes higher.

“He handled it very well,” Tina Biasi said of Dante. “He didn’t feel sorry for himself. He got over the shock of it initially and saw he had options.”

Ultimately, Maddon’s Cubs selected Dante 674th overall, just past the midway point of the 40-round draft.

A tough decision had to be made. Dante had a month to decide whether to sign a pro contract or take the college route to Penn State. Cooper and the Lions coaches kept in regular contact with him.

“When he called and said he had to have surgery,” Cooper said, “the first thing we said to him and his family was, ‘Look — that’s terrible. I know you’re hurt. You’re devastated. But we’re going to take care of you. All we’re doing is pushing pause on all the great things you’re going to do.’ “

For his part, Sal wasn’t about to push his brother in either direction, giving him space to make his own choice.

That said, Sal liked to hear Dante would be joining him again when the decision came shortly before the deadline to sign a pro contract.

“There was a buzz in Hazleton about him, which is obviously pretty cool,” Sal said. “I think he made a better decision and a more mature decision in coming here, trusting himself to develop and trusting the fact that he’s not a 20th-round pick.

“He’s higher than that. He’s better than that. And I think he’ll prove that in the next few years.”

Leaving their mark

Separately, Sal and Dante Biasi have had notable stories. Together, they’ve been able to motivate each other and improve their games.

“They know how to push each other’s buttons — in a good way,” Cooper said. “To keep each other in line and to pump them up. Dante knows how to get under Sal’s skin enough to get Sal to be the best he can be, and Sal is very much, ‘This is my brother. I’m going to help him.’

“There’s definitely a respect and a love and a bond that only brothers can have.”

That sentiment was shared by those who worked with the two in high school.

“Very, very proud to watch them,” Rubasky said. “It especially would have been easy for Sal to not like the relationship when Dante was turning out to be a star, and it could’ve been a little rough that your brother is getting the attention. … But the maturity in Sal was spectacular.”

As it is, they’ve spent the years sharing advice and experiences on and off the diamond.

And it’s not over yet.

“We have the same goals for baseball and in life,” Dante said. “(Sal) taught me to always compete. No matter what it is, don’t ever count yourself out.”

For other sports stories, click here.

Dante Biasi’s college debut on the mound won’t come until next spring, as the Hazleton Area grad is continuing his rehabilitation from elbow surgery. (Times Leader file photo)
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/web1_Hazleton-Area-BBall-4201732664151463.jpg.optimal.jpgDante Biasi’s college debut on the mound won’t come until next spring, as the Hazleton Area grad is continuing his rehabilitation from elbow surgery. (Times Leader file photo)

Sal Biasi ranks among the nation’s leaders in strikeouts per nine innings for the Nittany Lions. (Penn State Athletics)
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/web1_biasi201732661957298.jpeg.optimal.jpegSal Biasi ranks among the nation’s leaders in strikeouts per nine innings for the Nittany Lions. (Penn State Athletics)

Dante and Sal Biasi, right, combined to throw a four-hit shutout for Hazleton Area High School in the 2014 District 2 Class 4A championship game. (Submitted photo)
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/web1_WEB-PHOTO.jpg.optimal.jpgDante and Sal Biasi, right, combined to throw a four-hit shutout for Hazleton Area High School in the 2014 District 2 Class 4A championship game. (Submitted photo)

By Derek Levarse

[email protected]

BY THE NUMBERS

SAL BIASI

2013, Hazleton Area

Batting: .416, 22 RBI

Pitching: 4-0, 4 SV, 1.37 ERA

2014, Hazleton Area

Batting: .487, 16 RBI

Pitching: 3-2, 2 SV, 1.71 ERA

2015, Penn State

Pitching: 34.1 IP, 0-2 W-L, 31 Ks, 25 BB, 3 SV, 2.62 ERA

2016, Penn State

Pitching: 67.1 IP, 5-6 W-L, 66 Ks, 32 BB, 3.74 ERA

2017, Penn State

Pitching: 32.1 IP, 3-3 W-L, 47 Ks, 19 BB, 5.01 ERA

DANTE BIASI

2014, Hazleton Area

Batting: .380, 21 RBI

Pitching: 5-1, 1.58 ERA

2015, Hazleton Area

Batting: .435, 14 RBI

Pitching: 3-1, 1.28 ERA

WVC TO MLB

Since Russ Canzler was selected out of Hazleton Area in 2004, the Wyoming Valley Conference has had an alum taken in 10 of the past 13 Major League Baseball drafts. Sal Biasi hopes to add his name to the list in 2017.

2004: Russ Canzler, Hazleton Area

2005: Paul Chmiel, Pittston Area

2007: Kyle Landis, Hazleton Area

2008: Justin Gutsie, Hazleton Area

2009: Chris Sedon, Coughlin

2011: Ray Black, Coughlin

2013: Matt Wotherspoon, Crestwood

2014: Mike Papi, Tunkhannock

2015: Rich Condeelis, Tunkhannock

2016: Tony Hernandez/Dante Biasi, Hazleton Area

Reach Derek Levarse at 570-991-6396 or on Twitter @TLdlevarse

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