SARATOGA SPRINGS — Mike McFerran, a coach for Skidmore College’s baseball team from 2017 to 2020, was named the Kansas City Royals’ new assistant pitching coach last week.
For the past two seasons, McFerran had been with the Athletics, first as a pitching performance coach in 2024 and then in the role of minor league pitching coordinator in 2025.
“Mike’s track record is a good one,” the Royals’ general manager J.J. Picollo told MLB.com. “The way he was able to express his ideas and the way he thinks about pitching really made a lot of sense to us.”
Prior to working in the majors, McFerran was also the pitching lab coordinator and director of player development at Wake Forest University from 2021 to 2023.
At Skidmore, McFerran served in a few different roles, including assistant coach and pitching coach. He’s credited with mentoring a number of All-Liberty League pitchers, including Andrew Aikins, Spencer Anderson, Jay Gamboa, and Will Potter.
“Mike is a phenomenal coach and an even better human being,” Skidmore’s head baseball coach Ron Plourde told Saratoga TODAY last year. “He’s one of the brightest coaches that I’ve had the pleasure of working with.”
McFerran is a Capital Region native, spending his youth in both Albany and Lake George. He attended Catholic Central High School in Troy. His local ties also include a stint as the Amsterdam Mohawks’ pitching coach.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga Central Catholic basketball team launched their 2025-26 season with two decisive victories last weekend, earning the Mike Beson Memorial Tournament crown.
First, in a Nov. 28 contest against Galway, the Saints walloped the Golden Eagles 72 to 27, dominating early with a 28-4 first quarter. The route in the first round of the Beson tournament featured five Saratoga players with double-digit point totals; Bryce Peterson led with 13, while Kingston David, Thomas Zayac, Kihl Kelly, and David Redgrave all added 10 apiece.
In the decisive round two on Nov. 29, Spa Catholic capitalized on a 21-2 third quarter to obliterate Loudonville Christian 72 to 44. Redgrave earned a team-high 20 points, while Peterson poured in the buckets, totaling 17.
The Saints are now an undefeated 2-0 to start the season. They’ll next play against Rutland on Friday, Dec. 5.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Saratoga Springs native Dylan Davis, who earned 21 first-place finishes and more than $2.6 million in earnings riding at the Saratoga Race Course in 2025, is sidelined indefinitely following a frightening spill during a race at the Aqueduct Racetrack on Nov. 14.
The jockey suffered a host of injuries, including nine fractured ribs, a collapsed left lung, and a broken right collarbone.
Last week, Dylan’s brother Robbie Jr. created a GoFundMe to help pay for the medical bills, physical therapy, rehab, and living expenses that Dylan will endure while being unable to ride. The horse racing world responded to this call for aid by contributing $18,190 in just a handful of days, far surpassing the requested $12,000 goal. 151 donations were made, meaning that an average of more than $120 was donated by each contributor.
“We are incredibly moved by the outpouring of love, generosity, and support for Dylan over the past few days,” Robbie Jr. wrote on behalf of the Davis family after donations had poured in. “Thanks to each and every one of you, we reached—and exceeded—the fundraising goal much faster than we ever imagined. Because of your overwhelming kindness, we are closing donations, as the need has been met. Dylan is truly overwhelmed by the racing community, friends, family, and supporters who stepped forward without hesitation. Thank you for lifting his spirits during one of the toughest moments of his career.”
Robbie Jr. also provided an update on his brother’s health, writing that “despite the severity of his injuries, Dylan’s vitals remain strong. He has been hospitalized since November 14th and is expected to be released in the next few days.”
The Davis family has been prominent in the New York horse racing scene, especially in Saratoga, for decades. Dylan and his sister Katie (another jockey who was featured in the Netflix docuseries “Race for the Crown”) grew up near the Saratoga Race Course, where they fell in love with the sport thanks to their father, Robbie Davis, who was a popular jockey in New York in the 1980s. In addition to Dylan and Katie, the Davis family also includes Jacqueline (aka Jackie, a jockey based in the Finger Lakes) and Edmund (aka Eddie), a rising horse trainer.
Book cover of “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution” via the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler had just reached their early 20s when their country home in present-day Schuylerville was incinerated.
“On October 11, surrounded and desperate, his army depleted by casualties, [General] Burgoyne petulantly put the torch to Schuyler’s house, barns, and mills, reducing everything to ashes and charred timber,” writes Amanda Vaill in her new book, “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution.” “On the thirteenth he began negotiations for capitulation, and on the seventeenth his entire army of nearly six thousand men, seven thousand muskets, and forty-two cannon—in addition to tents, blankets, and other military provisions—was surrendered to Horatio Gates at a meeting place ‘150 rods south’ of the still smoking ruins of Schuyler’s estate.”
The Schuyler sisters not only bore witness, but also participated in a turbulent time of war, death, and the pursuit of a republic. The odds seemed to be always stacked against them, just as the ragtag colonists were thought to have little chance of success against the British Empire—that is, until Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga changed everyone’s fortunes.
The remarkable story of the Schuylers, especially the glamorous Angelica and the steadfast Elizabeth (wife to Alexander Hamilton), have been recounted time and again, most famously in the “Hamilton” musical and in Ron Chernow’s brilliant biography, “Alexander Hamilton.” But there’s often been a tendency to cast these characters in supporting roles, relegating them to shiny accessories.
The historical record reveals Angelica and Elizabeth to be fascinating figures in their own right; well-read, insightful, and influential women living in a time when women’s ambitions were restricted. Vaill, a bestselling author and Emmy-nominated screenwriter, explores their stories in her new book.
In advance of her Dec. 3 appearance at the Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga Springs, Vaill spoke with Saratoga TODAY about her new tome. Below is our interview, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Saratoga TODAY: Of all the things you could have written about, why the Schuyler sisters?
Amanda Vaill: If you look at my past publications, you’ll notice maybe that what I seem to be attracted to are these kind of turning point moments in history when things are changing. The ground is shifting under everyone’s feet… I’m attracted to this like bees to honey and I like thinking about the way people interact with those moments; how they’re caught up in them, how much they can influence them or not, how much they are affected by them. And in this case, I had these two women who did something so different from what they would have been expected to do. They didn’t just marry the right guy, they married the wrong guy [laughs]. They married really wrong guys, and one of them actually so much so that she had to elope, and her parents threatened to disown her. Of course, they didn’t. But Alexander Hamilton, even though Philip Schuyler became enamored of him…he was a real outsider. And the fact that these women decided, ‘Oh, I think I’ll cast my lot in with this guy,’…I thought that was awfully intriguing.
ST: I’d love to talk a little about Eliza. On paper, Angelica’s life seems so exciting and romantic, but Eliza always seems like someone who gets cast as a dull background character.
AV: Oh, you have put your finger right on it.
ST: What makes Eliza more interesting than perhaps we’ve been led to believe?
AV: If I may say so, I think a lot of historians who’ve looked at [Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler] are as enthralled by Angelica’s flirtatious charm as men in her own time were, and I think they all kind of want to date her… But the fact is, [when] these very same people think about Eliza, ‘Well, she was a good housekeeper. She could do the household finances. She could bear a bazillion children. She could do all of these things. They’re not very glamorous. Don’t I wish I had that person at home to do all my stuff for me.’ I feel as if people have willfully not paid attention to the evidence in front of their eyes. She is a beautiful woman. She was as beautiful as her sister. In some respects, maybe more so… They’re ignoring the things that she did to help Hamilton’s career, and it’s not just by being a hostess, although she was one. When people maintain that she wanted Hamilton to leave the government, they’re only relying on one witness for this… She also, of course, helped Hamilton with drafting his political papers and memoranda. She was there when he wrote the memoranda that justified the Bank of the USA. And in fact, [she’s] probably the person who read all of the horrific, thick tomes about economic history because it’s her name in those books, not his… She has an incredible ability to run things. Once Hamilton is dead, she’s able to collect all of his papers, which is an extraordinary undertaking. This little woman is traveling all up and down the eastern seaboard copying letters… She ran an orphanage for 20 years, an entirely woman-run nonprofit, and got it a state charter. She got money from the state. She got bills passed that would enable it to receive funding. She did all of that. This woman is really pretty formidable.
ST: Near us, we have the Schuyler family’s country estate. Could you talk about why you think these types of sites are important? If you go to the estate, what can you learn about the family and about the people who lived there?
AV: The thing that’s really stunning about going to the historical residence is the scale that life was lived on in this country. If you go to England or any of those stately houses, they’re Downton Abbey. They’re giant, huge things. Even the grandest places here are not that imposing. It’s a big house that you could kind of manage by yourself. I mean, you couldn’t manage it by yourself if you had to do all the cleaning and everything yourself and keep things up to the standards that people wanted, and also take care of all the agricultural work that went along with them because these were working farms and they needed a lot of attention. But they’re not immodest. There’s a scale that’s human about them, and it makes you suddenly realize that these are people that lived at a scale that’s a little less grandiose than you might imagine, given the fact that Philip Schuyler owned thousands and thousands of acres of New York State… The other thing is the relationship that the houses have to the land around them. When you go to see them, you can see how the people lived in them and related to their surroundings in a way that you wouldn’t if you had never seen it. And of course, in the case of the Schuyler Mansion—where so much of the furniture has been reassembled or they’ve made real efforts to replicate some of the objects that they had to make the house appear, at least in part, the way it might have when [the Schuylers] were there—you get a sense of: What was the material texture of life for these people? What kind of beds did they sleep in? How many people slept in a bedroom? All that kind of stuff is fascinating.
ST: Based on your research, what do you think the Saratoga estate meant to the family?
AV: Oh, a lot. The first house, the one that was burned by Burgoyne, Catherine Schuyler was really fond of that house. She loved it. I think it must have caused her terrible pain when it was burned. But [Philip] rebuilt it pretty much as fast as he could. Right after it was destroyed, he used Army carpenters and construction people and he really got that house put up pretty quickly. It’s grander now than it was because originally, when it was first built, the floors of the second story were the ceiling of the first story. They weren’t putting insulation and layers of stuff in between. It was just, ‘Get something put up here quickly.’ Because they wanted to have a place there. He had all of that real estate and all of the farms and the mills and the fisheries along the river there, and I think it was important to him to be able to be close to them to supervise them. But the family also appears to have had a real fondness for the house and the country because Albany was not New York City, but it was a pretty bustling small city. And Saratoga was just the country, and I think they loved it the same way people do now.
Amanda Vaill will appear in person at the Northshire Bookstore in Saratoga Springs on Dec. 3 at 6 p.m. Her book about the Schuyler sisters, “Pride and Pleasure,” was released on Oct. 25 and is available everywhere books are sold.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Tang Bazaar will return to the Skidmore College campus on Dec. 5, allowing more than 50 student vendors to sell their original artwork, pottery, clothing, jewelry, accessories, and other wares to hundreds of expected shoppers.
The one-day marketplace will run from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m. at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery. The event is open to the public. Although each vendor will have their own payment system, most will accept Venmo.
A few highlights of this year’s bazaar will be spoon jewelry (which student organizer Sophie Schulman-Cahn said has been a bestseller for the past few years), hand-painted calendars, handmade leather goods, chainmail jewelry, and even an original novel.
“Last year, about 800 people attended the Tang Bazaar, making it our most attended event,” Schulman-Cahn told Saratoga TODAY. “Many students have told me that it is their favorite Skidmore event, and I feel very lucky to be a part of making it happen this year!”
For more information, visit tang.skidmore.edu/calendar/2705-2025-tang-bazaar.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Once known as “the world’s most dangerous band,” Guns N’ Roses will perform amongst mineral springs and pine trees at the bucolic Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) on July 26.
The group’s global 2026 tour also includes stops at a number of stadiums, including MetLife in New Jersey, the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.
Guns N’ Roses made their mark on music history with their 1987 debut album “Appetite for Destruction,” which featured rock anthems “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City,” and “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” The record ranks as one of the best-selling albums of all time in the United States, shipping around 18 million units. The group’s success continued into the 1990s with a series of chart-topping albums: “G N’ R Lies,” “Use Your Illusion I,” and “Use Your Illusion II.” Today, nearly 40 years after the release of their first album, the group averages around 27 million listeners each month on Spotify.
Tickets for the Guns N’ Roses’ SPAC show will go on sale to the general public on Friday, Dec. 5 at 10 a.m.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Hedonistic heavy metal rockers Motley Crue will perform at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) on July 29, 2006, Live Nation announced recently.
Crue’s SPAC stop on their “Return of Carnival of Sins Tour” will include opening acts Tesla (the hard rock group, not the car company) and Extreme.
The Los Angeles-based band has amassed more than 100 million album sales, 22 Top-40 mainstream rock hits, and 3 Grammy nominations during their storied career. The band’s mythology has continued to grow in recent years with a pair of streaming hits: “The Dirt,” a biographical Netflix movie about the group’s history, and “Pam & Tommy,” a Hulu series about drummer Tommy Lee’s marriage to Pamela Anderson.
Tickets for the SPAC show are currently on sale via spac.org.
Spectators prepare to hear business pitches at Startup Saratoga, an annual event that occurred this year at Innovation Center Saratoga in Ballston Spa. Photo by Jonathon Norcross.
BALLSTON SPA — Startup Saratoga—an annual event similar to “Shark Tank” that allows local innovators to pitch their business ideas—took place, appropriately enough, at Innovation Center Saratoga last Thursday.
Five entrepreneurs presented their ideas to a packed house of business leaders, investors, mentors, and students. Of those five pitches, one was especially applicable to Saratoga Springs and its equine industry.
Riley Studebaker, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) who focuses on advanced digital fabrication, is perhaps best known as the founder of MetaOrnate, a company that installed the first, permanent 3D-printed ceramic façade in the western hemisphere in 2024.
But Studebaker also grew up on a horse farm, and his latest ambition is to use a new method of 3D scanning and printing to better the equestrian world.
Saddles, Studebaker said, can be uncomfortable for horses, even when those saddles are designed for a specific horse. And since horses typically only wear their saddles for a relatively small amount of time, there’s not enough opportunity for the animals to break in their saddles in the way that a human might break in a new boot. That’s where 3D scanning and printing technology comes in.
Studebaker wants to fabricate “exact replicas of unique horses’ backs to passively break in saddles when not in use,” he said during his Startup Saratoga pitch.
The RPI prof acknowledged that some existing companies already provide a similar service, but he said these services were one-size-fits-all, lacked customization, and don’t respond to the curvature or asymmetries of horses’ backs. “It’s not that good because it’s not that accurate,” Studebaker said.
Studebaker’s solution is to use a combination of 3D scanning and what he called a “novel” method of 3D printing to create an uber-precise replica of horses’ backs that would allow saddles to be broken in without the horses having to do much of anything. This process of scanning and creating a horse’s back would only take about five days, Studebaker said.
And because horses are athletes with bodies that can change shape, the 3D scanning and printing service could be repeated a number of times to create up-to-date replicas of horses’ backs. Studebaker’s initial strategy would be to market these products to horse trainers while also partnering with saddle manufacturers and horse show venues. Some lucky horse owners might even be able to get one of these 3D-printed products for free.
“We want to make some and give them away as first-place prizes for high-profile horse shows in the Saratoga region to get some customer feedback,” Studebaker said. “From there, an active subscription is $800 per scan; four scans per year.”
Although any small boost to a horse’s comfort could positively impact its performance and thus result in more prize money, Studebaker emphasized that the horse owners he’s spoken with prioritize the well-being of their animals most of all.
“Honestly, horse people just love their horses,” he said. “One of them articulated it to me in this capacity: ‘Owning a nice show horse is like owning a race car that’s also your best friend.’”
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Dale Romans, a Thoroughbred horse trainer who has long been a fixture at the Saratoga Race Course, formally announced a bid for the U.S. Senate on Nov. 12. Romans, a Democrat, will seek to replace Mitch McConnell, the longtime Republican senator from Kentucky who is retiring at the end of his current term.
Kentucky’s two senators, McConnell and Rand Paul, are both Republicans. A Democrat hasn’t held a U.S. senate seat in Kentucky since Wendell Ford retired in 1999. The New York Times called Romans the “Democrats’ latest long shot.”
Kentucky’s primary election will occur in May.
Romans has called himself an “independent Democrat” who is “committed to restoring trust in government by putting aside the partisan nonsense.” In his campaign launch video, Romans said he “wouldn’t be beholden to the [Democratic] party, but also wouldn’t be a puppet to the president, like a Republican freshman senator would have to be.”
Like many successful trainers, Romans has been a regular presence in Saratoga during track season. According to the Thoroughbred Daily News, 2024 was Romans’ 32nd-straight summer at the Spa. (“I always say Saratoga is like a box store in Manhattan,” Romans told the publication in a Q&A last year. “You are never going to make money. It’s expensive here. But you have to have a presence if you want to be at the top of the game.”) Last summer, Romans appeared at a New York Racing Association (NYRA) breeding farm tour at Old Tavern Farm in Saratoga. In 2015, his horse Keen Ice famously upset American Pharoah in the Travers Stakes.
Saratoga Central Catholic varsity baseball players Carson Moser (left, at Duke University table) and Pierce Byrne (right, Siena University table) participate in an athlete signing ceremony in the high school’s gym on Nov. 13. Photo by Jonathon Norcross.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Last Thursday, Saratoga Central Catholic celebrated two members of its state championship baseball team, both of whom have signed on to play for Division 1 schools, with a signing ceremony in the high school gym.
Pitcher Carson Moser will head to Duke University, while pitcher/outfielder Pierce Byrne will play for nearby Siena University. Both players will graduate from Spa Catholic in 2026.
“What an exciting day in the history of our sports programs,” said Alphonse Lambert, the school’s athletic director and varsity baseball coach. “Both boys and [their] families are in my Hall of Fame of people—great families, great student-athletes.”
Byrne is a 6’2” right hander from Warrensburg with a fastball that can hit 88 mph. In his high school career, he netted a 2.03 ERA across 194.2 innings, totaling 332 strikeouts. At the plate, he earned a 1.082 OPS in 2025 and a 1.087 OPS in 2024. He’ll be joining a Siena program that has sent dozens of players to the majors, including pitcher Matt Gage, who pitched for both the Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants during the 2025 MLB season.
This past spring, Moser, who looms over the mound at 6’7”, pitched for 11 innings in 4 starts, striking out 25 of 53 batters faced. He allowed 6 earned runs for an ERA of 4.91, while limiting his opponents’ batting average to .140. According to one of his scouting profiles, his fastball has topped out at 94 mph. The Blue Devils’ baseball program has produced MLB standouts such as Marcus Stroman, who most recently pitched for the New York Yankees, and Joey Loperfido, who made the Toronto Blue Jays’ American League Championship Series roster in 2025.
