Senior starting pitcher Chris Gloor was one of two Bobcats drafted last year. However, Gloor chose not to sign and returned to the Bobcats for his senior season.
The Chronicle sat down with Gloor to talk about why he didn’t sign, as well as other aspects of his budding baseball career.

Why Quinnipiac?

Basically, I had never even heard of Quinnipiac. I really didn’t talk to Skip (head coach Dan Gooley) a lot. I wanted to go to Yale. I was recruited to go to Yale. When it came down to it, my grades were borderline and I didn’t get in. Basically Coach (John) Stuper over at Yale is pretty friendly with Coach Scarpa here and skip. He gave them a call and recommended me. Skip got in touch with me right away, came up for a visit and fell in love with the place.

You were drafted in the 39th round last year by the Tigers. They offered you a contract?

Basically yeah, but it was a kind of “just for show” offer. They didn’t really want me to sign when it came down. The offer they made me wasn’t anywhere near worth leaving school for.

Coming back this year, do you think you had something to prove?

A little bit. I think why I got drafted had a lot more to do with how I played over the summers and not how I played at Quinnipiac. I wanted to prove to anyone at Quinnipiac that I was as good as my summers were. I never really put the numbers up in the springs as I did when I was in North Carolina or the Cape. I wanted to show my teammates that I got drafted for a reason.

Talk about your pitches. What’s your best pitch?

I pitch the best when my fastball is on – everything else kind of works off that. I throw fastball, curveball, and changeup. My changeup doesn’t really work too well if I’m not throwing a good fastball. And my curveball is definitely my third pitch. When it works, which is not all the time unfortunately, it is a good pitch for me as well. But definitely my best pitch I’d say is my fastball. When I have velocity and location, I think it’s going to be a tough day for anybody.

What do you top out at?

So far this year I’ve heard 90-91. That’s about where I’ve been in years past.

A lot of scouts come to your games when you start. Do you feel any added pressure when they are there?

They started coming last year, and I put a lot of pressure on myself last year, and I think it got to me. I had a really poor year. I think it was just because I was real tense. I would be staring behind the catcher at them, rather than looking at Mike [Marmo]. Basically once I got drafted, and I told myself well I had probably one of the worst years that I could have had. And I still got drafted, which must mean that I’m pretty good – or at least somebody thinks so. This year I try to relax a little bit more. I don’t look at the scouts.

How did you first get into baseball?

That was a long time ago. My father’s a real big fan of baseball. He and I used to play catch in my front yard a lot. I grew up in a neighborhood with a bunch of kids that were anywhere between two and five years older than me. They used to play baseball out in the street. We’d take a can of spray paint, spray pant bases, a plate and a mound. Over the wires was a home run. I wanted to go outside and play, and my mother kicked me out of the house as soon as the sun rose.

What’s your favorite team and favorite player?

Definitely a Yankees fan. My favorite player, even though I liked him before – now he’s on the Yankees, is CC Sabathia. I see a little bit of myself and him, or a little bit of him and me – whichever way you want to put it. I think he’s a pitcher that I’m similar to.

You wear No. 35. Is there any significance?

It was a jersey that fit me that was available my freshman year. It’s kind of grown on me. I like it now.

Conference play just started and the team struggled a bit. What are you thoughts for the remainder of the season?

We definitely have to turn around. I saw, and the rest of the team saw, that we did not play a complete game in one of the four games. There were times where our pitching was there and our defense and hitting weren’t. There were times where our hitting was there and our defense and pitching weren’t. We have the capabilities to play and compete and do really well in the NEC as long as we get everything together at one point and play a well-rounded game rather than giving up 18 runs but scoring 19.