He's taken his game from Central Square to Buffalo to the Major League Draft, and now Tom Murphy hopes to eventually find himself playing for the Colorado Rockies. On Tuesday the former Central Square baseball star was selected in the third round by Colorado in the MLB Draft, 105th overall.
"It was a couple of different emotions," says Murphy about when he learned he was drafted, "it was relief and then it was excitement, pure joy."
The big 6-foot-1, 225 pound backstop hit .311 for the the University at Buffalo in 56 games, knocking out 13 home runs and 51 RBI. Murphy was the MAC player of the year back in 2011, and also won the league's batting title. He says he was pleasantly surprised when he found out the Rockies has picked him.
"To be honest with you they're one of the teams that have talked to me probably the least. They had a ton of guys in, they were always very supportive of my ability and things like that, but they just never really voiced their opinion to me directly, but everybody else seemed to know that they were really on to me."
The Colorado Rockies also selected another Central New York product later on Tuesday, picking former Liverpool player Matt Wessinger in the fifth round with the 168th pick. Wessinger currently has a .353 average for St. John's as they prepare to play in their NCAA Super Regional this weekend.
