Local Baseball Star Leaves Majors for Medicine

From an athlete's start as early as Little League baseball, there is an allure of playing in the majors – you choose your jersey number because your favorite player wears it, you play the same position as the player you idolize, you even emulate the players batting stance, hoping you can hit a home run just like they do. As talent develops over time and the possibility of playing professionally becomes a reality, one would think that the dream wouldn't change, that playing sports professionally would be paramount to any other career.

This was not true for Dr. Michael Ciminiello.

Ciminiello, a Smithtown High School graduate, put aside his baseball dreams and is now an orthopedic surgeon. The doctors' history as a baseball player is deep and rich – his high school accolades include being a member of the New York State Championship team that won in 1990 and in 1992 he won the Carl Yastrzemski Award, which was given to the best player in Suffolk County. Following high school, Ciminiello attended Princeton University where he was a member of a Ivy League Championship team in his senior year and was named captain of the baseball team in his junior and senior years.

After college Ciminiello was granted the opportunity to play baseball professionally by being drafted by the Detroit Tigers. After one season in the Tigers' minor league system, his pursuit of playing major league baseball wouldn't last long–by choice.

"I was in the minor leagues in single-A ball with the Jamestown Jammers in the New York Penn League, I didn't see much playing time, I wasn't one of their top picks and I was lucky to be picked but the writing was on the wall that I wasn't going to make the Major Leagues and I didn't want to spend 10 years of my life pursuing a dream that really wasn't going to become a reality," Ciminiello said.

Following his one season playing professional baseball, he decided to pursue a different career, a career in medicine.

Ciminiello attended Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia where he earned his medical degree, followed by a residency and fellowship at the Rothman Institute for Orthopedic Surgery. In September, the doctor moved back home and practices at The Krauss Center for Joint Replacement at Peconic Bay Medical Center, where he performs hip and knee replacement surgery.

"I truly enjoy doing joint replacement surgery from a technical perspective, I enjoy the reproducibility of the results," he said. "I like being able to go help somebody with a predictable operation that I know is going to be durable and reliable for a long period of time. I thought joint replacement surgery offered me that opportunity."

The decision to move back to his hometown to practice medicine was admittedly an easy one for him to make, and was largely driven by the proximity of his family and friends.

"I had multiple opportunities elsewhere making more money than I do now but the overriding factor to come home was family," Ciminiello said. "I have strong family ties on Long Island, good friends. I grew up here, it's home, it's always going to be home and I can't think of a better place to raise my children. I'd like to have my parents and my kids grandparents involved in my children's upbringing."

Ciminiello admitted his only current involvement with baseball is through his children with Little League. Although baseball is in his past, he said he has no regrets with his decision to leave the sport.

"I don't look back really at all," he said of baseball. "I decided out of high school that I was going to go to school. I could have gone out of high school and played baseball and given it more of a shot, but I don't regret any of my decisions at all. I'm very happy with the decision that I made and am very happy to come home and enjoy my family and be back on Long Island to be around my parents and in-laws, my sister and brother, family and friends."