UTICA, Mich. – The Utica Unicorns of the United Shore Professional Baseball League announced that the organization has added former Carson-Newman catcher Matt Parkinson to its 2022 roster.
Parkinson is the third player to ink a deal with the league joining Raunel Perez and Greg Jones from 2017 that signed with the Westside Wooly Mammoths and Unicorns respectively. Jones parlayed his time in the league into a contract with the Colorado Rockies organization. The Whitesboro, N.Y. native becomes the 23rd player coached by Tom Griffin to play professionally and the first since Ethan Goforth was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2019.
Utica is off to a league-best 16-5 start to the year, 4.5 games better than any other team in the league. Parkinson is one of the top hitters on the roster hitting .308 with five RBIs and earning a nod to the All-Star Game.
After transferring to Mossy Creek for the 2021 campaign, Parkinson flashed an electric piece of lumber from the start of his first year at Mossy Creek tallying multi-hit games in each of his first two appearances launching three homers in his first eight at-bats. He produced at least one RBI in each of his first four games and eight of the first 10 outings. The catcher opened career with 12-game hitting streak homering in six of those hitting .486, 18-37, with seven long balls and 15 RBIs.
In the SAC Tournament, he collected five hits and drove in four runs. All told, the backstop finished the season with nine multi-hit games and eight multi-RBI efforts. Defensively, he committed a total of four errors and threw out 58 percent of would-be base stealers.
The catcher picked up where he left off in 2022 posting a .336 batting average with five homers and 23 RBIs. In his two years on campus, he hit .351 with 13 homers and 52 RBIs over 76 games. Behind the dish, he threw out 20 of the 38 runners attempting to steal a base, good for 53 percent.
The USPBL was designed as an innovative developmental finishing school for players seeking to make it to the Majors. All told 31 players have been signed by MLB clubs since the inception including former Unicorns pitcher Randy Dobnak who has appeared in 33 games at the big league level since 2019.
The official website for the league can be found here while fans are encouraged to follow the @USPBL on Twitter for the latest updates.
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