Former Falcon soars in first season with Blues

Cal Chance is already a well known name in the Bristol baseball community. The former St. Paul Falcon has continued to soar at the college level and is back home for the summer and still barreling baseballs. 

 St. Paul is a baseball powerhouse in the state of Connecticut. The Falcons have won six state championships in their history, three of which have come in the last five years. St.Paul has also had a long list of alumni that went on to play at the collegiate level and even professionally. 

"I'm very lucky to be considered one of those names," Chance said. "Ryan Daniels ('22) played with him my freshman year. He's an awesome baseball player, I'm just lucky to be in the same category as him." 

After finishing a historic high school career, winning two Class S CIAC state championships and being St. Paul's all-time leader in hits, Chance has returned to Bristol and picked up right where he left off. 

After high school, Chance took his talents to the University of Massachusetts Lowell to compete at the Division I level. He played in 45 games as a true freshman and started all of them. Chance finished with a .294 batting average and was named to the America East All-Rookie Team. 

Chance wasn't on the opening-day roster for Bristol. He made his Blues debut on June 17 against the Valley Blue Sox. Since then, he has played in 16 games, is batting .281, slugging .368, and has a .328 on-base percentage. 

"I've already played with some of these guys before," Chance said. "These coaches made it super easy for me to fit right in. I got lucky great group of people here." 

Chance was already having a great season, but he has kicked it into another gear the past couple of weeks. Chance was on a 10-game hit streak from June 25-July 19, with four of those games being multi-hit games, including July 18 where he finished a home run shy of the cycle and had three RBIs in a 14-2 win over the North Shore Navigators. Just two days earlier, Chance delivered the walk-off winner against the Valley Blue Sox as the Blues came from behind to win it 5-4. 

Among players with 15 or more at-bats this season, Chance has the third-highest average on the team. There's no doubt that he's been a big factor for the Blues this summer, and being able to do it in the same city he brought two championships to means a little bit more. 

"It's awesome I'm super lucky to have this opportunity," Chance said. "Being able to come here 10 minutes down the road, it's just really special to be able to play here." 

 You can catch Chance and the Blues back in action at Muzzy Field on Wednesday night as they take on the Upper Valley Nighthawks at 6:30 p.m. 

Written by Ryan McKenna.   

Photo Credit: @kyle.bradley4 Instagram