In Westport’s nearly 400-year history, the town has produced two Major League Baseball players. The first, Hezekiah Allen, played in exactly one game, for the Philadelphia Quakers on May 16, 1884. The second, Ben Casparius, just brought home a World Series ring in his first season on the active roster for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ben says his baseball career was shaped by his childhood in Westport, from “early memories” playing Little League with his dad as his coach, on to Westport District Baseball, and then Staples High School, where he was a standout on a talented team. “I had a really good freshman year,” Ben remembers. “I knew I was going to play in college. But I think sophomore year [was when I realized] I think I could do this professionally.” By the time he graduated from Staples in 2017, he had been named the Connecticut Gatorade Player of the Year and led the Wreckers to a state title. After high school, Ben started his college career as a two-way player at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but transferred to the University of Connecticut after two years. “[At UNC] I was in a weird position being a two-way player, so I was pitching and hitting, and I didn't think I was making enough impact on the field to get drafted,” he says. His sophomore year, he began focusing on pitching only. “When I was in the transfer portal, I ended up visiting UConn. I fell in love with it. They've had a really good track record with pitchers, and they've built a powerhouse program.” His MLB draft prospects also looked promising as a Husky: “A lot of people don't know that when you're getting scouted by professional teams, there's regional scouts and then there's crosscheckers nationally. I didn't have a relationship with any scouts besides the Northeast scouts from the high school circuits,” he explains. Transferring to UConn “was probably the best decision I've made for my career.”
It’s easy to see why Ben feels that way. At UConn, he had to sit out the 2020 season due to transfer rules, and then, as a red-shirt junior, was drafted in the fifth round of the 2021 draft by the Dodgers. “I was watching the draft with my family. My grandma was here, and we were just sitting on the couch, waiting. And I ended up getting a call from the Dodgers in the fifth round. It was a pretty special moment. And it was weird too, because it was my first full year pitching ever.” Things moved quickly from there— in 2024 alone, he went from the AA Tulsa Drillers to the AAA Oklahoma City Baseball Club to making his MLB debut with the Dodgers in August, and had an oblique injury in the middle of it all. “Mentally, that was really difficult for me because I was told by a few people there was a chance I was going to debut during the time frame of my injury,” he explains. “But that's probably the proudest I was this year, because I flipped a switch and was like, okay, this [injury] happened. But I don't care. I'm gonna get back up there.”
Not only did he make the active roster, he picked up his first MLB career win on his first day on the Dodgers mound, in a late August game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. His first MLB start came two months later, in game four of the World Series against the New York Yankees, in Yankee Stadium, on his mom’s birthday. “I remember coming out of the tunnel and seeing my family and joking to my mom ‘Oh mom, happy birthday! That’s your gift!’” he says with a laugh. “It was just the most incredible thing. I’ve dreamt—multiple times—of pitching in the World Series against the Yankees. Because they’re the Yankees! It was unbelievably perfect.” Ben, who had mostly been relief pitching since debuting in the majors, pitched the first two innings. “I’m pretty proud of that too—I thought I did a good job when it was the first time I've ever actually done that, and it was at the pinnacle of my sport.”
The Dodgers clinched the series the following night, giving Ben a championship in his first season on the active roster. “There are a lot of guys who have amazing careers, but they don't have a ring, or they haven't been able to play in the World Series. So I just told myself that there were plenty of guys who could have started that game and they chose me, and it felt really good that they trusted me,” he says.
Ben says there are lessons from his Westport days he still carries with him, even as he gets ready for next season. “I’m really close with my summer coach, Pat Vigilio— he’s like my second dad, honestly. And his biggest message was preparation. If you’re prepared, you don’t need to be nervous.” The advice reminds Ben of a moment on the morning of Game Four when he called his dad from a coffee shop in midtown Manhattan, nervous because he didn’t feel well and knew he’d be pitching in a few hours. “I told my dad ‘I don’t know what to do. I feel horrible.’ And my dad said, ‘well, what are you gonna do?’ And I said: ‘I’m gonna pitch.’” Tapping into that preparation tuned out all the noise. “I did it. I pitched in the pinnacle of our sport. And I was able to go out there and treat it like any other normal day.”
"I’ve dreamt of pitching in the World Series against the Yankees. It was unbelievably perfect.”