The Rochester Red Wings welcomed home a pair of the area’s best players in recent memory, Ernie Clement and Casey Saucke, as these guys along with the Red Wings look to continue to foster Rochester’s pro baseball family.

“It’s amazing. I can’t believe anybody wants my autograph,” Clement joked. “It’s so funny. I remember coming to Rochester Redwings games as a kid and waiting down the third base or first base line trying to catch a ball or get somebody to sign a baseball or my jersey or something like that.”

“I could never turn down an autograph. It’s the coolest thing,” Clement added.

Clement just wrapped his fourth and best season in Major League Baseball, playing in 139 games for the Toronto Blue Jays. A Brighton graduate, Clement was named a Gold Glover finalist in the American League at third base.

Saucke graduated from Greece Athena in 2021 and was drafted in the fourth round of the MLB draft earlier this year by the Chicago White Sox.

Both Clement and Saucke went to college at the University of Virginia. Both of the former Section V stars said that Clement might have influenced the younger Saucke to attend his alma mater.

“I’m grateful for him. I had many conversations with him about Virginia,” Saucke said. “He gave me some great advice, and he told me what I was in for there, it’s a hard-nosed program.”

Saucke batted .290 in 73 games with the Winston-Salem Dash in High-A ball this year.