“For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out, at the old ball game,” Jack Norworth wrote as the last line in the iconic song, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

Raider fans get excited, as baseball makes it’s anticipated return to Moorpark College Athletics. The baseball team was cut due to budget cuts in 2012 and after a brief two year hiatus the team is back and ready to go!

The Raiders are managed by Mario Porto, who is entering his twenty-third year with the program and thirteenth as the manager.

“It’s an exciting time for us and just like the opposite of 2012 when they shut it down,” Porto said.

The baseball program is excited to be back and are ready to play baseball, according to Porto.

“In baseball it’s always pitching and defense…and it showed up in 2012,” Porto said were the keys to success this season.

During the 2012 season in which the Raiders won a share of the Western State Conference Championship with Cuesta College and Santa Barbara City College they batted .240 and had an earned run average (ERA) under three. Coach Porto wants to duplicate that success at the pitching mound this season.

Riley Conlan, a kineisiology major and an outfielder is looking forward to, “restarting the program with a great group of guys and coaching staff.”

The Raiders are looking to start seven to eight freshman this season since the program had to be revamped. As far as sophomores go there are a few that came from different programs to play for the Raiders but there are none that are returning.

Thomas Luevano, a mechanical engineering major and a pitcher/utility player believes the keys to the team’s success this season will be, “getting the fundamentals down.”

Everyone on campus is excited for the return of the baseball program and you can catch their first game January 27th.