Two things a baseball player must have in order to succeed are grit and determination. It also takes a great deal of resilience in order to play through the tough times, and Mark Faello has shown that resilience throughout his inspirational Hofstra career.
The senior pitcher is having the best year of his career here in Hempstead. In nine starts on the mound, he has a 5-2 record, is pitching with an earned run average (ERA) of 3.59 and has struck out 40 hitters, good for second best on the team. He’s also coming off the best start in his time at Hofstra on Friday, April 8, when he pitched a complete game against UNC-Wilmington, albeit in a 3-1 loss for the Pride.
Faello came to Hofstra from Plainview, New York, and grew up a fan of the New York Mets, idolizing legendary third baseman David Wright. He first joined the Pride as a two-way player and received multiple offers before deciding on Hofstra. He received offers from West Virginia University, the University of Maine as well as Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) rival James Madison University (JMU).
“West Virginia gave me just a walk-on opportunity,” Faello said. “I was talking to JMU a bit, [and] I knew their hitting coach. To me, JMU was just Hofstra but further away. And Maine, they just kind of saw me at a showcase, and they were interested, [but] I just never really had a chance to go up there.”
It was after a pitching appearance in his freshman year at Hofstra that something just didn’t feel right. Faello went to the bullpen, and one of his teammates saw a lump on his neck. He went to multiple doctors before he got a diagnosis in June 2019: Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
He wasn’t going to let that stop him from doing what he loved.
“Chemo was hard, but I don’t think it’s as hard as people think,” Faello said. “Obviously you don’t want to go through it. You get treatment probably every two weeks. Once you got treatment, once you’ve flushed everything out which would take about three or four days, after that you were maybe not back to 100 percent, but you were normal-er. And the doctor said, ‘If you feel up to pitching, you can, but if you don’t feel up to it, don’t do it.’”
Despite his diagnosis and the fact that he was going through chemotherapy, Faello played summer league ball for the Bristol Blues in Connecticut, in the Futures Collegiate Summer League. Up there, while undergoing treatment, he posted a 6-0 record and had a league-leading 1.53 ERA.
“He always wants the ball; he’s a fighter. He never gives in,” said first-year Hofstra head coach Frank Catalanotto. “He’s not afraid. He challenges hitters. Even when he doesn’t have his best stuff, he battles.”
“He’s awesome. He’ll go out there and compete,” said Hofstra catcher Kevin Bruggeman, who is normally paired with Faello when the latter is starting on the mound. “He’s tough. When he doesn’t have his best stuff and when he has his best stuff, he’s the same mentally. He’s a tough kid; he’s awesome to play with and a great teammate.”
During the 2019-20 school year and before the 2020 season, Faello’s family and others urged him not to play and to take time off so that he could recover, but he disagreed. He still went to practices and to classes as usual, even while having a PICC line, a tube that is inserted into the arm and attached to a vein in order to give treatment. He even went on to play in four games, starting in one of them, before COVID-19 shut the world down.
“I just didn’t want to sit home and do nothing,” Faello said. “I was like, ‘Why not? I’m here anyway.’ It would’ve been smart to opt out. Thank God that COVID happened, because this would be my last year. COVID hurt a lot of people, but it really helped me out, I don’t think people realize that.”
A year later, he was cancer-free and played the entire 2021 season. He got a mix of starting time and relief duties last season, making eight appearances. Former Hofstra head coach John Russo started him four times and called on him from the bullpen four times. While Faello compiled a 2-1 record and struck out what had been at that time a career-high 29 batters, his ERA was 6.21, and he had a 1.53 strikeout ratio.
One highlight of that year was him being the recipient of the Randolph Inspiration Award, which is given by the CAA to “individuals who, through the strength of character and human spirit, serve as an inspiration to all to maximize their potential and ability for success.” He was the second-ever Hofstra recipient of the award.
“It was really cool. Actually, I didn’t even know I won until my mom told me,” Faello said. “She said, ‘Yeah, you won this award. It’s for inspirational stuff,’ so I thought it was really cool winning that.”
Faello is a hard worker, and it shows, considering how well he’s pitched in nine starts during the 2022 season. He’s had to work hard to get back to where he was before when he came to Hofstra in 2019, and his game has evolved along the way.
“I’d say the difference between this year and last year is [that] I developed the changeup,” Faello said. “It’s been a lot better since the previous couple of years. My velo is starting to get back to where it was, and I can hit my spots. I’m just more mature and experienced.”
“He’s always working,” Bruggeman said. “That’s one thing about Mark. You’ll come out here at random times throughout the day, and there’s one car in the parking lot and it’s Mark. He’s just a bulldog. He loves competing and he wants to help the team as much as possible.”
Developing his changeup has proven to be fruitful for Faello this season. That pitch has now become his most effective, and he can become lethal to hitters when it’s working.
“I just played catch with it every single day,” Faello said. “That’s really all you can do is play catch with it, try different grips out. That’s all I did. But it’s a feel pitch, and it takes time to get feel.”
“When it’s on, it’s his best pitch,” Catalanotto said. “He’s effectively wild with the fastball, but when he can throw the changeup especially in some hitting counts, 1-0 or 2-1, it’s really effective. It’s gotten so much better since the fall, and it’s one of his weapons now.”
His coach and teammates are amazed at what Faello has been able to accomplish. They are inspired by the toughness and the persistence he has shown, and they love the way he approaches almost everything in life.
“Knowing what he’s been through and the attitude he brings to the field every day is just incredible,” Bruggeman said. “He’s always the happiest guy here. [He] loves being around hi
s teammates [and] loves the back-and-forth banter that we have going. And once he gets out there, everyone wants to win for him. It’s awesome having him on the team.”
“The way he pitches is kind of like the way he fought through cancer: he never gives up,” Catalanotto said. “And that’s what he did. He just keeps battling, keeps going at it. It’s nice to have him on the team, because he’s such a good kid and he’s good for the team.”
And that’s the thing that everyone admires about Faello. He’s tough, he doesn’t give up easily and he won’t go down without a fight.
“I think this made me stronger, and it changed my view on life because you don’t really know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” Faello said. “I just enjoy life now, and I enjoy every second of playing this sport.”
Photo courtesy of Joe Buvid/Hofstra Athletics
