Boran looks forward to baseball life after his time at Princeton

June 4.

Ask any Princeton senior what the significance of that day is and they will point to the culmination of their undergraduate life.

Ask senior Pat Boran, however, and he'll tell you it is the start of his professional career. That's because June 4 is not only the date for commencement exercises, but it is also the date of Major League Baseball's Amateur Draft.

Boran, Princeton's starting shortstop, will have a difficult time keeping his emotions balanced. After all, it is not often that two of the most important moments of your life come on the same day.

"The immediate emotion will probably be about baseball," he said. "Right now I'm really focused on baseball and I'm really concentrating on making it to the next level. I'm going to take a few years to try and work that out.

"If [it doesn't work out], Princeton is a pretty good backup plan."

Growing up in Pottsville, Penn., Boran started playing baseball when he was three or four years old, tagging along to his sister's softball practices.

"My dad would always throw me into the mix, throwing me batting practice and ground balls and things like that," he said.

Not until college did he limit himself to just one sport, however. He had played basketball since he was a little kid and picked up soccer during high school.

"Baseball's always been the sport I've loved the most and was definitely the sport I thought I could compete at on the college level," the politics major said. "The other two sort of weeded themselves out."

Coming off a terrific junior year in which he led Princeton in hits (66), runs (46) and doubles (19) and finished with a .335 batting average, Boran played this past summer in the Cape Cod League. It was a change for Boran, in that he found himself playing top-notch opponents every night.

"They're the best players on their [college] teams so it's supposed to be like the top players in the country," he said. "Everyone comes out there with their own sort of confidence level and ego. You know every night you're playing against the best players in the nation and in front of a whole bunch of [pro] scouts.

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"It's a little different than here where you kind of get a break some games playing weaker teams. The competition never let up there, night in and night out."

Boran said he hopes to take his experience in the Cape Cod League and use it to help the young Tiger squad win a third consecutive Ivy League Championship.

"Right now we're feeling pretty good," Boran said. "We have a real deep pitching staff and our hitters, although young, have a lot of talent. We have a lot of pop all throughout our lineup and we have a lot of guys who can put the ball in play. We're very optimistic right now."

Pointing to the youth on the team, especially in the outfield, Boran credits last year's senior leadership in getting the freshmen ready to play everyday this year as sophomores, thus making his job as captain much easier.

The team's main goal, always, is to win the Ivy title and then improve on the previous year's performance. That might be a difficult task this year, considering that last year, the Tigers won their first NCAA Tournament game since 1965.

After clinching the Ivy title last year, Princeton defeated The Citadel 11-6 in an NCAA Regional game before bowing out of the tournament to South Carolina, 11-7. The crowd did recognize the Tigers' accomplishment and showed its appreciation, as Princeton was getting ready to return home.

"[We received a] standing ovation when we got up to leave in the fourth inning of the championship game," Boran said. "There were about 10,000 fans that stood up and gave us a standing ovation. It was probably the best feeling I've ever had related to baseball in my entire life."

At least it will be until June 4.