Adam Heidenfelder gets the start for Old Westbury pic.twitter.com/6uPgGmt4hh
— Axcess Baseball LI (@axcessbaseball) March 3, 2018
Adam Heidenfelder got thrown into the stickiest of situations.
The hard-throwing sophomore had just gotten the call up to varsity from JV after striking out 37 batters in his first two outings. All he did was escape the jam with three strikeouts on his way to striking out 9 batters over three shutout innings.
It turns out that it was merely a prelude for the type of dominance that the 6’5 250 lb workhorse would have for MacArthur in 2013 and 2014.
The Early Days
Heidenfelder was born and raised in Wantagh, NY but was in the Levittown school district. He was the second of two Heidenfelder boys.
His father, John, played college baseball at Queens College, as did his uncle, Curt.
Adam “played everything” when he was younger, and even cited football as his favorite sport to play in those days.
“With the way we grew up in Levittown, everyone was outside playing. Our parents didn’t want us to be sitting in the house all day. We just kind of have that attitude, mindset, culture where everyone wants to be great.”
Heidenfelder played in the LSW Little League before switching to Levittown North when he was 10 or 11. He recalls the “great battles against Wantagh. It was all your friends, all the kids you grew up with.”
He fondly remembered going to Cooperstown All Star Village where he joked that the players were even bigger than him.
“I think I gave up the furthest home run ever there. But you don’t just go up there to win – it’s about the experience more than anything.”
In his younger days, he always looked up to Roger Clemens. Although his parents are both Mets fans, his grandpa and brother are Yankee fans so “I wasn’t a Yankee hater – I always had an affinity for Clemens.”
On the gridiron, he admired Dan Marino and maintains his Dolphins fandom to this day.
MacArthur HS
When Heidenfelder entered high school, he was physically imposing but hadn’t experienced that jump in velocity yet. For that reason, he was kept on the JV-B team at MacArthur.
“He wasn’t Adam Heidenfelder yet,” said legendary coach Steve Costello who retired as head coach after the 2025 season.
The following season, everything changed.
Heidenfelder noted that he made a significant jump in velocity that offseason after working with longtime pitching coach Rod Stephan.
He started the season on JV and struck out 18 batters in his first game and 19 batters in his second game.
“At that point, I said ‘okay I have to look at this kid,” said Costello who recalled speaking with the JV coach and telling him that he would be getting the call to varsity. The thing was, MacArthur’s varsity staff had three reliable upperclassmen – Frankie Ziegler, Joe Chiaramonte and Kevin Roach. That meant the sophomore would be headed to the bullpen.
In his first opportunity in a scrimmage against district rival Division HS, he brought the heat.
“His first three pitches were 88, 89 and 88. He was striking out everyone,” said Costello.
In his first outing against Hicksville, he entered with the bases loaded and nobody out. All he did was strike out the side on his way to a 3 inning, 9-strikeout, scoreless performance. At that point, it was clear he wasn’t going back down to JV.
Costello had one other memory from his sophomore season. In a playoff game against Bellmore JFK, Heidenfelder came in to a game with MacArthur leading 7-2 but Bellmore had the bases loaded and Diamond Award winner David Leiderman at the plate. He stated that he struck him out to end the threat.
That season was a particularly strong one for MacArthur, but they would lose to Calhoun in the Nassau Class AA Finals.
Heidenfelder estimated that he threw about 10 innings that sophomore season with 25 strikeouts without allowing an earned run. What caused his massive one-year jump in velocity?
“I think I just started understanding my body and how to pitch. I always had a good arm but it was just a matter of understanding who I was, how to utilize the mound and how to utilize my body,” he said.
That summer he played with the Long Island Whalers and continued to develop as a pitcher. By the time the 2013 season began, he was garnering plenty of attention.
“I would say I earned becoming the ace through the winter workouts. That year I remember facing Jason Foley from Mepham and Bryce Keller from Port Washington. I faced the other team’s aces every week,” he said.
The results were startling as Heidenfelder went 6-1 with a 0.92 ERA, 88 strikeouts and 12 walks in 53 innings. It earned him the coveted Diamond Award as the top pitcher in Nassau County.
Unfortunately, MacArthur would once again come up short in the Nassau Class AA Finals against Massapequa.
The Division-I schools came calling after the season. He recalls Binghamton, St. John’s, UCLA and Clemson reaching out but it was a school in his backyard that showed the most interest.
“Coach John Russo from Hofstra was the one coach that seemed like he really wanted me. After I committed, I remember him coming down to a game and half the Hofstra team was there. That was really cool and made it feel like they really cared. I’ll never regret my decision going there.”
For his senior year, Heidenfelder was a huge name on the Long Island baseball scene. His 6’5 frame was impossible to ignore and he was on one of the best teams in the state – the scouts came in droves. Heidenfelder stated that there was MLB scouts at every one of his outings and he saw every team represented at some point throughout the season.
Although there is no official record of it from the time, he recalls a Duke coach telling him that he hit 96 on the gun. One thing is not debatable, the velocity was overpowering.
“Adam didn’t just throw 90,” said Costello. “Every pitch was above 91 that year.”
Unsurprisingly, the results were mind-boggling again.
He went 6-1 with 95 strikeouts in 50+ innings with a 0.42 ERA, 0.80 WHIP and .141 opponent average. He allowed 0 earned run in one loss. He was awarded the Diamond Award yet again – beating out future Hofstra teammate Alex Cosenza of Massapequa and Anthony Papa of Division. He became the first repeat winner since fellow Levittown-native Bryan Verbitsky in 2009 and 2010.
MacArthur would not reach the finals that season, but got over the hump the next season when Heidenfelder was in college – they defeated Oceanside in the Class AA Finals.
After his senior season, there was a legitimate chance that he would get selected in the 2014 MLB Draft.
Longtime Mets scout Larry Izzo had an in-home meeting with the Heidenfelder family.
“He was sort of giving us the rundown of everything and then he asked what my number was – how much it would take for me to sign. And how do you put a number on that? I had no idea. My parents wanted me to go to school. I knew sports would eventually end. They had told me I was a rounds 3-5 guy. When the draft came, I was told to stay by my phone all day, but nothing ever happened. The only one that got drafted was Jesse Berardi, who I wound up playing with on the Ducks later on.”
It was off to college.
Hofstra University
Heidenfelder had made the decision to stay close to home and attend Hofstra University. Several other 2014 graduates had done the same – players that he had played with on the Body Armor Titans like Steven Foster (Sachem North), Mat Anunziata (Eastport-South Manor), Chris Weiss (Longwood) and Jesse Russo (Clarke).
He noted that he pitched very well in the fall and in his exit meeting with Coach Russo, was told that he would be one of the weekend starters.
“That is the holy grail to hear that you are one of the weekend starters as a freshman. It was unreal for him to put that trust in me.”
In the opening weekend of the season, he was thrown directly into the fire at Jackie Robinson Stadium against UCLA – the #11 ranked team in the nation. Heidenfelder got the Saturday start and pitched okay – 3 innings, 2 hits, 5 walks, 3 runs with 3 Ks. The next week, he was thrown back out there at the University of Hawaii. It was another tough game, as he was tagged with the loss in an 8-2 game.
Eventually, his performance stabilized and he had a few solid performance – notably 6 shutout innings against Villanova at the end of March and 7 strong innings at Charleston the following week.
Ultimately, it was a challenging time for Heidenfelder who struggled both in 2015 and 2016 for the Hofstra Pride.
“Things took a downward turn,” he said. “It was unfortunate, I couldn’t stay there any longer. I still have a decent relationship with Coach Russo, he came to one of my games in pro ball. I forgot how much fun it can be to play baseball – I lost that for a little bit. That was a part of going to Old Westbury.”
Old Westbury
With his career at a crossroads, Heidenfelder sought out his pitching coach, Rod Stephan, the longtime head coach at SUNY Old Westbury. It was a perfect fit as Heidenfelder was in need of a reset and Stephan was the person that truly believed in him.
“I knew Rod would do right by me,” he said.
He pitched the 2017 season, and was effective although not truly dominant. He pitched 47.2 innings to a 3.40 ERA. He went to Del Ray Beach that summer to pitch in the South Florida Collegiate League. Not only was it perfect for him to face good competition, but it felt like home as his teammate Jesse Russo was on his team along with 4 players from Adelphi and 2 from LIU Post.
“Playing against freshman from some of the biggest schools in the country was a really cool experience and it was unexpected to see so many familiar faces from Long Island. He performed well, going 4-1 with a 3.82 ERA that summer.
While things were trending up, his career hit another roadblock in 2018 when he suffered his first serious arm injury.
After starting the season off with 11 innings, allowing one run, it began in his third outing against NYU when he walked four and allowed 8 hits.
“I had no idea where the ball was going. I was trying to throw it down the middle and balls were going to the backstop. I knew something was wrong.”
He got it checked out and the MRI revealed a torn rotator cuff – a significant injury for any pitcher and a serious issue as a 21-year-old.
It would’ve been understandable if he decided to hang it up at that point as he faced the prospect of a long recovery. But he did the only thing he knew how to – work hard and come back for his fifth year.
“In 2019, everything clicked. I was in a better place mentally and physically. I put a lot of work into getting ready. I knew everything had to be perfect. I got back to that mindset I had in high school of ‘you’re not gonna hit me.’ I lost that prior. I was kind of looked at as the dad on the team. My job was to lift up those younger guys and give them all my knowledge. That really pushed me to be who I used to be. I got back to the old way.”
Heidenfelder put together a truly impressive season – 4-1 record, 1.89 ERA over 47.2 innings. He was named second team All-Conference and third-team All-Region.
With that, his collegiate career was over. Heidenfelder decided to give it one more shot at playing ball. He had heard from Yankee scout Cesar Presbott about a workout at Monroe College. Unfortunately, he didn’t pitch to his standards and figured that was the end of the road.
He accepted a role to be an assistant coach on the staff for the 2020 season.
As we all know, the 2020 season would not last very long. The Panthers would play just 4 games before the NCAA cancelled the remainder of the season due to the pandemic.
During some of those early days of the lockdown, Heidenfelder received a call from his former teammate Christian Tessitore who asked if he wanted to throw.
“I said nah, I don’t know. He said ‘c’mon, it’s covid, let’s throw.”
He decided to take him up on it.
And then something strange happened.
His velocity came back.
“I give a lot of credit to Tessitore. We would go throw at MacArthur everyday. I worked out at East Coast with Warren Kelly and that really gave me a jump start. I owed it to myself to give it one more shot.”
He went to another workout that summer which was a hybrid league called the All-American Baseball Challenge. He pitched for the Rockland Boulders over 7.1 innings, allowing two runs. It was a very informal league, he stated they did not keep standings.
In 2021, he received a call from the coach of Gary Southshore Railcats in Indiana offering him a pro contract.
He wound up pitching 59 innings with a 4.12 ERA. His velocity was back up to 94 MPH and he was holding it for several innings.
Then the improbable happened.
Heidenfelder got a call informing him that his contract had been purchased by the Chicago Cubs.
“Holy shit – it really worked!’ I said to myself,” said Heidenfelder.
He flew out to Mesa, Arizona for extended Spring Training. If this was a Disney movie he would’ve gotten the call to the big leagues in front of 50,000 people but unfortunately, life is not a movie. While it was a truly long shot that he went from sitting on a couch in March 2020 to pro ball in one year, the tenure in affiliated ball only lasted a brief while and he was released.
“It was cool to walk the same halls as some big leaguers for a bit,” he said.
Heidenfelder would get traded to the Long Island Ducks later that year where he would pitch 9 innings. He played with some former big leaguers such as Hector Sanchez and Steve Lombardozzi as well as several players from Long Island; Nick Bottari, Matt Vogel, Jesse Berardi and Frankie Moscatiello.
“I played with all of those guys when I was younger.”
The next season, he went back to Gary, Indiana and he won a starting spot in the rotation. He performed well – going 7-6 with a 4.50 ERA over 100 innings with 84 strikeouts.
After that, his professional baseball career was officially over. He stated it was time, knowing he was 26-years-old and it was time to enter the real world.
The Next Chapter
Heidenfelder stated that he always wanted to get into coaching because he “enjoys helping people”.
He actually started giving lessons while he was still playing in 2021 and he did so in that next offseason as well at Max Effort Baseball.
“I feel like I gave back and it was gratifying. Also, it was cool to get the recognition when you’d hear someone say that I played pro ball.”
While his passion was still baseball, he was interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement. With everything going on in NYC during that time, he was not interested in joining the NYPD.
“My cousin had just moved to Florida to become a cop in Fort Lauderdale and he told me how great it is. I put my application in on a whim and within three days I got a called and they asked if I wanted to start the hiring process.”
Over the course of the next two months, he flew down to Florida every other week to get everything completed. He officially hired on in May 2023.
“It’s been a crazy ride.”
He noted that he would like to get back into coaching in Florida at some point, and would like to get a FLPD baseball team going but right now his focus is on his career.
“Baseball is something that will always be on my mind.”
