» LA Rams Super Bowl QB Jared Goff’s dad once played in Colonie

PHOTOGRAPHER: File Photo

A June 1988 Albany-Colonie box score that includes Jerry Goff, Jared Goff's father. Background: Heritage Park

COLONIE – Jared Goff is leading his Los Angeles Rams tonight in Atlanta for Super Bowl LIII but a few locals might have seen another Goff – Jared Goff’s dad Jerry – once hit the field in Colonie – a baseball field.

Jared Goff, the son, made this year’s Super Bowl in his third season with the Rams. Jerry Goff, the father, arrived in Colonie in 1988 in his third professional season as a catcher in the Mariners minor league system for their team in Vermont, which played in the same league as the old Albany-Colonie Yankees.

The Daily Gazette dug through old Albany-Colonie box scores from Jerry Goff’s season in Vermont and confirmed Goff made it to Heritage Park on at least one trip in June 1988. (Jerry Goff also returned to Albany-Colonie’s league briefly the next year.)

Old Gazette Albany-Colonie Yankees box scores that include Jerry Goff. From left to right: June 22, June 24 and July 18, 1988.

Locals, however, could be excused if they didn’t notice him, at least in the local games uncovered. In one game, the catcher went 0 for 3. In another, he went 0 for 1 as a late-game substitution.

The father had a little more success against Albany-Colonie the next month in Burlington. He scored twice and hit a home run off Yankee starter Mike Christopher, Goff’s second of the year.

Jerry Goff went on to make the majors two seasons later with the Montreal Expos, ultimately playing in parts of six big league campaigns.

His son, future star QB Jared, came along in 1994, just after Jerry Goff’s latest baseball season, played in Buffalo for the Bisons. The Buffalo News has more on that.

Minor league baseball continues locally with the Tri-City ValleyCats. They even continue to play against Vermont, now the Lake Monsters, at the same field where Jerry Goff once hit that home run off Albany-Colonie.

And a Goff is still playing, again as locals watch, just on television in front of an audience a little bigger than Heritage Field could and Colonie could offer his father.

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