The moment came for junior Matt Iannetta following a conversation with a complete stranger in a Florida airport this past March. That was when the gravity of his brother’s accomplishments finally hit home for Georgetown’s junior catcher. As Iannetta waited for a plane with his teammates on a Spring Break road game in Bradenton, a wide-eyed middle-aged man approached him with excitement.
“`Are you related to Chris Iannetta?'” he remembered the man asking. “`I saw him in Baseball America, and I have been following him.’
“That’s when I was like, `Wow.’ Things have really escalated.'”
For Matt Iannetta, it was the latest in a string of surreal events since his brother joined the Colorado Rockies after a late-season call-up from the minors last August. Since then, Matt Iannetta has seen his older brother smack his first Major League hit off San Diego Padres’ ace Jake Peavy at Coors Field, catch 14 innings at Wrigley Field in a victory over the Cubs and appear on the pages of Sports Illustrated’s annual baseball preview issue as one of the game’s eight hottest prospects.
For Matt Iannetta, who is enjoying his first full season of college baseball after transferring from the University of North Carolina in August, it has been strange but rewarding to watch his role model and close friend ascend to his sport’s summit.
“It has been really just a thrill for me and my whole family,” he said. “We have seen his process of growing as a baseball player, from college to the minors, and to me, when you reach the majors, you’ve reached the top level – it just becomes more real.”
Seeing his brother square off against the big names of the big leagues has also inspired him to improve his game. Growing up in Providence, R.I., the Iannetta boys shared a love for baseball that brought them together at a young age.
“The three years difference in age was kind of a big deal, but we were very competitive,” said Matt Iannetta, who remembers long afternoons of wiffle ball battles in the backyard. “But the main thing for me was trying to play up to his level. Even in Little League, I would always practice with him, try and hang with his friends. It was very competitive, but we were very close.”
The age gap prevented the two from ever sharing the diamond at St. Raphael Academy, but after Chris Iannetta graduated in 2001 and took his three-time all-state skills to North Carolina, his brother filled his shoes, serving as the Saint’s captain during his junior and senior years and earning all-state honors during his final season.
“They were real hard workers that came from a great family,” Tom Sorrentine, head coach at St. Raphael, says. “They were just top of the line guys, both on and off the field.”
When it came time to choose where to attend college in 2004, att Iannetta’s mind was set on North Carolina.
“[Chris] encouraged me to go on other visits,” said att Iannetta, who also entertained offers from Boston College, Vermont and Rhode Island, where his father Domenic ran track. “But at that point I had been watching Carolina baseball every night for three years. When you get that opportunity, you are going to jump at it.”
When Chris Iannetta was taken by the Rockies in the fourth round of the 2004 amateur draft and elected to forgo his final two years as a Tar Heel, Matt Iannetta came to Chapel Hill determined to step into his brother’s footsteps once again.
“They were just two of the greatest kids I have had the opportunity to coach,” Tar Heel Coach Mike Fox remembers. They practiced hard, they were focused, and they were intense.”
For Matt Iannetta, filling his brother’s role behind the plate seemed as straightforward as hitting a down-the-middle fastball. But life, as it has a tendency to do, threw Matt a bending curve. Shortly after arriving in Chapel Hill, Matt suffered from complications following a sinus infection and dropped 20 pounds off his 6-foot and previously-195 pound frame.
While his brother streaked through AA ball with the Tulsa Drillers, Matt Iannetta struggled, weak and frustrated by his diminished power.
“I didn’t really get much of an opportunity my freshman year,” he said. “The coaches had seen me at showcases in high school, and they were kind of confused as to what was going on. I think they kind of wrote me off a little bit.”
Matt Iannetta remembered talking often with Chris during the season, drawing strength from his brother’s calming reassurance.
“He let me know, `This is the way the Coach [Fox] is – sometimes he’sa tough coach to play for, but UNC is a great program,'” Matt Iannetta said.
Spurred on by his brother’s encouragement and empowered by an off-season weight program, Matt Iannetta came back to Carolina with a vengeance his sophomore year, hitting consistently against Andrew Miller, now with the Detroit Tigers, and Daniel Bard, currently one of the Boston Red Sox’ top pitching prospects, during preseason practice. Matt Iannetta earned the starting designated hitter spot going into the season and belted a grand slam for his first collegiate hit against Seton Hall three games into the season.
“Matt’s situation his first year was really difficult for him, and I think that because of it, I would say Chris was a little more advanced, skillwise, as a freshman,” Fox said. “The next year, I recognized that same fire to compete.”
But Fox was not the only one who noticed Matt Iannetta’s resemblance to his older brother. Scared by the prospect of pitching to Iannetta, opposing pitchers started to avoid the Tar Heel’s newest slugger, and as his production decreased, Matt settled into a pinch hitting role and grew more and more disillusioned as his team steamrolled through the season. Once again, it was Chris, now tearing up AAA with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, who offered the wisdom that kept Matt going.
“It became clear to me that I was not going to get an opportunity [at Carolina],” Matt Iannetta recalled. “When my brother heard that, he told me that I needed to go somewhere where I could play.”
Soon thereafter Matt Iannetta got a phone call from fellow Ocean State-native Matt Bouchard, a rising shortstop star at Georgetown. Bouchard convinced Iannetta he could be a valuable asset to the Hoyas, and Matt became enthusiastic about the idea of joining Head Coach Pete Wilk’s squad. By the time the Tar Heels had advanced to the Super Regionals of the NCAA tournament, Iannetta had made his mind up. Out of respect to his teammates and coaches, he chose to keep his decision quiet until the Tar Heels had finished their outstanding 2006 season, which ended with a loss to Oregon State in the College World Series finals.
“I realized how special of a year it was becoming, and I wanted to enjoy it, let the team enjoy it,” Matt Iannetta said.
During his first year on the Hilltop, Matt Iannetta has kept close with his brother, following the Rockies religiously on the Internet and getting to know Colorado stars Matt Holliday and Todd Helton. When Matt Iannetta struggled at the plate early in the year, he sought solace in the fact that older brother wasn’t hitting so well either.
“He has a lot more experience than I have, and he knows the ups and downs of baseball. He just tells me to keep my confidence up at every at bat and realize your ability and it will turn around,” Matt Iannetta said.
Both Chris and Matt Iannetta check each others’ stats online nightly, and the two still talk several times each week. While Chris Iannetta may have the Sports Illustrated spread and the following of Baseball America subscribers, it is Matt Iannetta who currently boasts the better stats.
With his brother currently mired in a .158 batting slump in the young season, Matt is hitting .230 with 23 RBIs for the Hoyas. The younger Iannetta, who has split time with senior captain Brandon Davis behind the plate this season, hit a two-run jack in last Wednesday’s loss to Mount St. Mary’s and led the Hoyas to a 10-1 victory over Connecticut on Saturday with two timely hits.
“He has added so much to our lineup because he can hit for power and average,” said Bouchard, who has been close friends with Iannetta since the two played on the same AAU team as teenagers. “He just brings so much to the table.”
The brothers plan to someday realize their goal of both playing in the Major Leagues and of sharing the same diamond, something that they have not done since their early days playing wiffle ball.
Chris Iannetta sees nothing in his younger brother that would dissuade him from the notion.
“He is very athletic, and he has a great work ethic,” Chris Iannetta said. “I think professional baseball could be the next step for him.”
The pros may seem a lofty goal for Matt Iannetta as an inexperienced junior on a last-place team, but no one knows Matt Iannetta better than his brother Chris, who also happens to be the golden boy of the Colorado Rockies.
After all, it takes one to know one.
