Play ball!
Money manager likes diamonds
By JIM GORDON

Chris Conover is president and chief investment officer of Hudson Valley Wealth Management of New City, a startup incorporated January 1. He is also designated hitter and sometimes third baseman for the first place New City Outlaws.

Conover, at 32, is the oldest player on the playoff bound Outlaws, defending champions of the Westchester Rockland Wooden Bat League, which plays baseball with hard balls and wooden bats. “It’s probably the closest thing you can find to real baseball in the Hudson Valley,” he said of the 14 team league that plays a 32-game schedule from April to August and then embarks on playoffs.

Conover himself will likely miss the playoffs this year due to a longstanding engagement, he is getting married in mid-August and going on his honeymoon. Meanwhile he is house hunting in New City where he moved with his family when he was in second grade and started his baseball career, which took him to Oswego college in 1994 to play college ball until his knee got wrecked. That started a new path that led to his business career.

The Hudson Valley Wealth Management firm is a way of serving individual investors as opposed to institutional investors, and providing advice to people. Conover, who founded the company, has experience in assets management with Sun America Mutual Fund and annuities like Guardian Life Insurance. He said he founded his company to provide personalized attention to investors. “My motto is pretty simple: take an ultrahigh net worth mindset and try to make it available to people with far less cash,” Conover said, saying he tries to have one-on-one conversations with investors whose net worth is typically between half a million and a million dollars or more.

But in 2001 he decided to have his knee repaired. “And once you get back into shape you start thinking about all the things you missed and one of the main things I missed was playing baseball,” said Conover.

Hey played briefly in a league in Clifton, N.J., “a metal bat league” that did not include a lot of familiar faces, but a little research and a fortuitous meeting with an old Little League teammate led him to the Westchester Rockland league, with teams in Rye, Sommers, Yonkers, Pleasantville, New Rochelle, Peekskill, Dansbury and Bronxville.

They play on college and high school fields around the region.

“Its an interesting mix of characters, an interesting group of characters,” said Conover. “We have to call it a semi-pro league because some guys get paid to play or have their fees picked up for them.” He said some players around the league played in college division one or two, as well as in some farm systems for major league teams.

And he said the league has a more traditional air, and sound, about it than a metal bat league. “A wood bat is really attractive to me; it’s a little more pure than the ping of the metal bat,” Conover said.

He said the appeal of playing at his age is not mysterious, a busy adult playing a kid’s game. “To play with the younger guys, it keeps you sharp, it also keeps you young,” Conover said.

“There is obviously the on-the-field stuff, that sense of competition, that feeling you get in the heat of the battle,” said Conover. “There’s something really great about being up at bat down a run with two guys on base in the last inning, to be able to compete, to still feel that. It’s something any competitive person really lives for, to be in that position and see how you measure up. It’s very clear cut.”

But Conover said that the largest attraction “is the off-the-field stuff. Baseball is truly a team sport, there’s no way you can play by yourself or do it without a team. I really enjoy the sense of team, the unity and being part of a group, the closeness and camaraderie.”

top of page