Crisafulli Earns 500th Hit in Chiefs Uniform
His first hit came in 1994 on a rainy night at Alumni Stadium in Lowell when he was a shy 18-year-old rookie a few days removed from his Medford High School graduation.
His 500th came via an RBI double in the first inning of Thursday’s 4-1 win against the Arlington Trojans at Tufts University.
In his almost fifteen Chiefs seasons in between, lifelong Medford resident Justin Crisafulli established himself as one the greatest and most feared Chiefs and Intercity League hitters of all time.
Crisafulli reached the lofty ICL 500 hit plateau with a RBI double to the right-centerfield gap and now trails only the retired Mike Langston (538), on the Chiefs all-time hit list.
Along the way, Justin has ripped 87 home runs and knocked in 384 runs in 1,459 at bats. Add to those impressive totals the fact that he has a career .342 batting average, it becomes obvious to see why he is considered among one of the Intercity League’s all time best. And for Chiefs fans the good news is that he is still going strong and he will be atop every Chiefs batting record before he hangs up the spikes and his number 33 is hung up and retired.
To put Crisafulli’s longevity and career accomplishment’s into focus, on the night he recorded his first hit, veteran third baseman Mike Andre, who batted just before Crisafulli, was the seven-year-old Chiefs bat-boy. Peter Copa, who scored on last night’s double, was a six-year-old first grader. Major League Baseball players had just voted to cancel the remainder of the 1994 season and the California Highway Patrol was chasing O.J. Simpson’s Ford Bronco through the streets of Los Angeles.
Crisafulli emerged as a star at Medford High School in the early 1990’s. His baseball ability was not limited to the plate as he was considered one of the state’s top high school pitchers of that era. In fact, he was actually selected by the Boston Red Sox as a pitcher in the 17th round of the 1995 major league draft. He opted to attend Western Arizona Junior College instead. That decision rewarded him with a trip to the JUCO World Series. Following his career in Arizona, Crisafulli accepted a baseball scholarship to Divison II powerhouse Central Missouri State and once again was playing for post-season honors, this time in the D-2 World Series.
After one of the most incredible individual ICL season’s of all time, when he hit a remarkable .515 (70 for 136) with 13 homers and 57 RBI’s, leading the Chiefs to a 36-6 record and another championship, Justin signed with the Cleveland Indians on the day the 1997 ICL season ended.
At 34, Justin can still put fear into ICL pitchers. Although his home run totals have decreased, along with the rest of the ICL when the league’s wood bat era began in 2002, he still can take it out of the yard at anytime.
A “True Chief” in every sense of the term, Crisafulli is the elder statesman of the Chiefs franchise. He has played a major part of four ICL championships and seven regular season flags. When his playing days are over, he will be remembered as not only one of the greatest hitter’s in ICL history, but also one of the classiest guys to ever to wear the Chiefs uniform.
– Information from www.intercityleaguebaseball.com