Stony Brook alum Travis Jankowski thrilled to be back with Mets
Travis Jankowski of the Mets looks on during the fifth inning against Atlanta at Citi Field on Monday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Travis Jankowski was back in the Mets clubhouse on Monday afternoon and no one communicated the excitement about it better than Pete Alonso, who spotted him, hollered “Janko” and then shared a big embrace with him.
Jankowski, one of the stars of the Stony Brook team that reached the 2012 College World Series and who spent half the 2022 season with the Mets team that won 101 games and made the postseason, returned to the organization on a minor- league contract June 10 after he was released by Tampa Bay.
“I couldn’t stay away — I had to come back,” he said. “I like New York too much. So, yeah, it’s good to be back for a second stint here.”
Jankowski finished the 2022 season with Seattle and then helped the Rangers win the 2023 World Series. This season has been a journey as he’s spent time in the Cubs, White Sox and Rays organizations — something that he called “a gut punch.”
His role for the Mets is largely seen as a pinch runner — he has 104 career steals — and as a pinch hitter/defensive replacement in the outfield.
His return to the Mets has allowed him to reconnect with some of the people from the 2012 Stony Brook clubhouse. He said he’d already connected with former coach Matt Senk, catcher Pat Cantwell — who spent time as a big-league bullpen catcher — and pitcher Frankie Vanderka.
“The friendships that I made at Stony Brook [are] the kind that last a lifetime,” Jankowski told Newsday. “Those were such great days.”
That Jankowski ended up playing baseball for the Seawolves, he explained, was actually a big fluke. Coming out of Lancaster Catholic (Pa.), he was offered more than 10 Division I football scholarships and only one baseball scholarship — to Stony Brook. He had initially decided to play football at UConn.
“I was going to be a wide receiver in college until my high school baseball coach [Mike Davis] sat me down and asked me if I knew how big college linebackers were,” Jankowski recalled. “I said, ‘Maybe 200 or 210 [pounds]’ and he said ‘more like 250 and how many hits do you think you can take?’ Then he said, ‘I know you want to be a professional athlete and the only way that happens is baseball.’ ”
He added that he is eternally grateful for that piece of advice.
He also considers getting the baseball scholarship offer the result of a moment of kismet when he was attending a showcase for high school players at the Rays’ Tropicana Field.
“I didn’t even really have a good [showcase], but there was one play that Joe Pennucci noticed,” he said of the SBU associate head coach who now is head coach at East Tennessee State. “I was in centerfield and the leftfielder lost a fly ball in the roof. I’d hustled to back him up and ended up throwing a runner out at third base on the play.”
He said it wasn’t until his junior season — when he led the nation in hits, runs scored and triples — that he finally approached Pennucci about the scholarship offer.
“I asked him, ‘Why did you take a chance on me?’ and he said, ‘You backed that guy up on the play,’ ” Jankowski said.
Jankowski called going to Stony Brook “the best decision of my life because of all I learned from my teammates and coaches being in the program.”
He said that there was something he didn’t get growing up in Amish Country that he discovered playing alongside players from Long Island and the Greater New York area.
“There’s a toughness about the people who grew up playing baseball on Long Island and in New York and I needed to pick it up or get weeded out,” Jankowski said. “Getting that from those guys became part of my makeup and it has been ever since.”
When he played for the 2022 Mets, Jankowski was a bit of a fan favorite and viewed by teammates as a positive force in the clubhouse. He hopes to be those things again this time around.
“To the Mets fans, thanks for everything,” Jankowski said. “I’m not sure why you guys loved me, but I’ll take it and hopefully do things so I can keep their support.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
