His goal was to play baseball in the College World Series. It didn't matter that Anthony Galli would chase the dream to the flatlands of Iowa, far from his home in Falmouth. The University of Northern Iowa liked his bat and his makeup.

Head coach Rick Heller beckoned and Galli packed his bags for last year's fall semester. Some of Galli's friends might have kidded him for disappearing amid cornfields, but so what.

So this. Galli's team played its last game last month. Last, as in final. UNI decided to drop its baseball program in February, giving Heller, former players and their supporters six weeks to raise $1.2 million to seed a $10 million endowment that could support the team into the future.

Less than half of the seed money was pledged by early April. The baseball team got the news during its first series of the season. After 106 seasons, baseball would not be back.

"We had no idea (it would end like this)," said Galli, who was back home in Falmouth this week after the end of his freshman year. "We were raising money. We were working to keep the program, and then we're told it wasn't going to happen. We were shocked."

The team played on through a final season in the Missouri Valley Conference. The Panthers were 23-26 overall, 7-15 in the MVC. They did win their final game, beating Bradley, 3-2.

No, the season wasn't very satisfying, although as teammates and friends they came together even more. They got mad together. They cried together. Heller put off his own job search to help players find other schools.

"We had a television station follow us around for a while," said Galli, who wasn't sure why. He decided to redshirt and retain all four years of his NCAA eligibility. "I didn't go on the road with the team and that was hard. Because of what was happening, you wanted to be around your teammates. They were your family."

Suddenly, and in a small way, Galli could relate to the millions of Americans who have lost jobs, homes and opportunities in the past year. He felt like the floor beneath him was giving way and he was powerless to stop it. He was a year out of Falmouth High. What did he know about real life?

Galli was lucky. He had a safety net named Kenny Joyce to break his fall. Joyce, the Deering High and University of Southern Maine grad who is a minor league hitting coach, got a phone call.

"I could just tell by the tone of his voice," said Joyce, now with the Las Vegas 51s, the Toronto Blue Jays' Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League. "He sounded desperate. He didn't know what to do. It's a lot for a young man to handle."

Joyce was an unpaid bullpen coach for the Portland Sea Dogs when the Florida Marlins brought minor league baseball back to Maine in 1994. He hasn't forgotten the baseball men who helped him. Joyce told Galli not to worry.

Joyce called Dave Pano, a Blue Jays hitting instructor and the head coach at St. Petersburg College, a two-year school in Florida. "I told Dave, 'I've got a kid who can hit in the middle in your lineup right now.' "

By the way, Galli is an honor roll student. He also placed sixth out of 60 kids at a national home run derby at Tropicana Field, right there in St. Petersburg.

It's funny how things can work out. Several other UNI players have applied to transfer to St. Petersburg. Pano sends players on to ACC and SEC schools. Major league scouts have his phone number.

"I wanted things to work out at Northern Iowa," said Galli. "Coach Heller was the one who believed in me."

Instead, Galli got an education of another sort. A state university's budget had to be balanced. The cost was in uprooting people's lives.

Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be reached at 791-6412 or at:

ssolloway@pressherald.com