BY KEITH IDEC
STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD
Joe Gambardella realized John Biggiani was everything the demanding coach expects from a Ridgefield baseball player during Biggiani’s sophomore season.
One of Biggiani’s teammates asked him why he was so willing to take even the most dangerous hops off of his chest or other body parts while fielding grounders. The second baseman’s response was one Gambardella never forgot.
“He said, ‘I would rather break my nose than make an error,'” Gambardella recalled. “I just looked at one of my assistants and said, ‘Do you think this guy gets it or what?'”
It didn’t take Biggiani long to prove he gets it more than most.
He became the starting second baseman on a team that won a sectional title when he was a freshman, just a month after finishing his first high school basketball season as the starting point guard for the Royals’ varsity team.
As the start of his senior year nears, Biggiani’s busy summer has included about 40 baseball games for three teams, summer-league basketball games, and most recently attending a basketball camp with several teammates in Reading, Pa.
The 6-foot-2, 175-pound Biggiani is motivated to help Ridgefield reclaim its prominent place among North Jersey’s baseball programs. The young Royals won just seven games last season after capturing sectional titles in three of the previous four seasons.
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