NYCBL Alumni Spotlight: Jeff Wilpon (Syracuse '82)

Welcome back to the New York Collegiate Baseball League Alumni Spotlight. Every other week until the beginning of the 2009 NYCBL season in June, former NYCBL (NCBL or NESBA) players or coaches will be featured. Last June, 33 current or former New York Collegiate Baseball League players were selected in the Major League Baseball entry draft. Countless other former players and coaches have gone on to success at the collegiate and professional levels.

Today, the spotlight shines on former Northeastern Collegiate Baseball League player Jeff Wilpon. Wilpon was a catcher for the 1982 Syracuse Junior Chiefs. The team played in the North Eastern States Baseball Association umbrella organization in the Northeastern Collegiate Baseball League, an NCAA-sponsored league in upstate New York. The Junior Chiefs were managed by Onondaga Community College head coach Joe Antonio. Wilpon's team finished the regular season with a 17-7 record and tied the Cortland Apples for first place in the league standings. However it was the North Syracuse Merchants taking the league's playoff championship.

After a summer with the Junior Tribe, Jeff Wilpon was tabbed by the Montreal Expos in the fourth round (64th overall) of the 1983 Major League Baseball draft. He spent time with the New York-Penn League's Jamestown Expos.

Today, Jeff Wilpon is the Chief Operating Officer and Senior Executive Vice President of the New York Mets. Wilpon serves in the same capacity with the New York-Penn League's Brooklyn Cyclones and the Mets Development Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the New York Mets. In addition, he is the Executive Vice President of Sterling Equities. Wilpon, according to his biography on the Sterling Equities web site, oversees the Mets day-to-day baseball and business operations. He also worked alongside the city of New York to help oversee the planning, design and construction of Keyspan Park in Brooklyn, the home of the Brooklyn Cyclones.