This may be Andy Orfanakos’ last year at the University of Toronto, but the Varsity Blues’ pitcher has had his fair share of success both on the field — winning an OUA championship — and in the classroom, where he is close to finishing his Bachelor of Education at OISE.
TAI NOTAR/VARSITY BLUES
Orfanakos received his undergraduate degree from York University, where he pitched for the Lions for four years. However, U of T’s academic reputation and successful baseball program drew him here for his next degree.
“U of T was always my first choice because of the prestige and reputation of the school,” said Orfanakos. “I also knew I wanted to play baseball, and with the success the program had experienced up until this year, it made it an easy decision for me.”
Orfanakos has not yet decided whether to pursue further education or enter the job market.
It hasn’t been all schoolwork for Orfanakos — he has seen much success with the Varsity Blues during his time here, capturing the OUA championship this season. For his outstanding pitching in this season’s playoffs, he was awarded the OUA championship MVP award and named OUA male athlete of the week.
During his one season pitching for the Blues, Orfanakos experienced one of the wildest baseball seasons imaginable. “[It was] crazy in every sense of the word.”
Because of his commitment to represent Greece in a tournament in the Netherlands this fall, Orfanakos was forced to miss the start of the season, which created a hole in the Blues’ pitching rotation. This, combined with inconsistent starts from Marek Deska and an injury to Ryan Donelly, required the pitching rotation to be filled with younger, less experienced players. With some shaky defense and stagnant hitting, the Blues got off to a very disappointing start, at one point falling to a measly 3–8.
Despite the bad start, the Blues stayed positive, and once the second half of the season came along they were at full strength, clicking as a team and ready to roll.
“At this point our pitching rotation was together for the first time in the season,” said Orfanakos. “We were able to get strong pitching performances in the final stretch of the season which set a huge tone for the team.”
The Blues snuck into the playoffs, where Orfanakos would come up with clutch performances right when they were needed. In game two against Guelph in the first round, Orfanakos closed for Drew Taylor, sealing the win that took the Blues to the final against top–seeded Brock University.
“The adrenaline was definitely running, especially knowing how huge this game was. At this point I knew I had to keep calm and just make quality pitches to give myself and the team a chance to win.”
But his most important performance came in the final against Brock, in a winner-takes-all game. Orfanakos allowed no runs during his eight innings pitched, helping his team to a 4–0 victory and a second consecutive OUA championship.
His pitching was so good that he was able to keep the Brock fans quiet through most of the game. As the team with the best regular season record, Brock hosted the tournament, and their fans were able to get under the skin of the Varsity Blues players.
“Pitching the final game was awesome,” recalls Orfanakos. “There is no better feeling than pitching well in a big game and ultimately helping your team win the championship.”
Orfanakos’s baseball career is not limited to the Varsity Blues. He began by playing for various teams at the city level, one of them being the Scarborough Stingers. Before coming to U of T, he studied at Winston Churchill C.I., and then York.
This past summer, Orfanakos signed with the Burlington Twins of the Intercounty Baseball League, a semi-professional league based in Ontario. Playing against ex-major and -minor league players as well as against the current champions, the Brantford Red Sox, provided valuable experience that Orfanakos was able to use over the course of the Blues’ wild season.
Orfanakos’s game does not start and end here in Canada. However, he is very involved in the international baseball scene. In the summer of 2011, Andy was invited to play in a European Cup Qualifier for a Greek club named Spartakos Glyfada. In their last game of pool play, Orfanakos pitched a complete game win with 12 strikeouts against Beograd 96, a team from Serbia, who eventually went on to be finalists in the tournament.
This past September, Orfanakos was given the opportunity to pitch for Greece at the European Championships in the Netherlands. The competition featured many players with major and minor league experience, and saw Greece go for 3–3, missing out on the second round by just a single game. Orfanakos was called on to pitch in four of those six games.
“The experience was amazing and I was able to learn a lot by listening to coaches, teammates and playing against great competition,” recalled Orfanakos.
Although this will likely be his last season pitching for the Varsity Blues, Andy plans to continue his baseball career at the international level.
