Squeeze Play – College Baseball Foundation Notebook 2/15/07
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Squeeze Play – College Baseball Foundation Notebook 2/15/07 LUBBOCK, Texas--For the week of: February 15, 2007 www.collegebaseballfoundation.org But How Does It Effect Your APR? The 2007 college baseball season is already shaping up to be ‘out of the ordinary’ as two of the more interesting headlines in recent memory crossed our desk in the wee hours of the morning…right out of the gate, in the year’s opening contest at Hawai’i-Hilo, defending National Champion Oregon State spun a no-hitter…filtering in around 2:30am came news that Mike Stutes, Josh Keller, Mark Grbavac and Jorge Reyes combined to pitch a no-hitter hit the internet as the Beavers beat the Vulcans, 5-0, for the third no-hitter in OSU history, and the first in 40 years… Stutes struck out seven hitters in five innings of work, then Keller worked two innings and Grbavac and Reyes one each to finish off the no-hitter…understandable if you missed the news, it was Oregon State’s earliest season-opener ever, a real insomniac’s dream…a great footnote until this gem crossed my desk last Friday…”The second game of the series between South Dakota State and Kansas was suspended after eight innings early this morning, because The Metrodome would not let the teams start another inning after 7 a.m.” Oh, no, that must be a misprint, but I read on…seems that the season opening Kansas homestand at Hougland Park with SDSU had been weathered out, but creative minds went to work…it was back on the schedule with a new location and drastically different starting times…after searching for places to play, coaches from both schools agreed on a three-game series to be played at The Metrodome in Minneapolis…the two teams invited their fans to real ‘Moonlight Madness’…a doubleheader beginning at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, with the series supposedly concluding with a single, nine-inning game at 3:30 a.m. Sunday…the fly in the ointment was that several other regional college baseball teams were already playing at The Homerdome over the weekend, necessitating the unusual starting times…but alas, ‘the best laid plans of mice and men’ usually don’t work out that smoothly…the next communiqué included the aforementioned incredible news…in the end, after KU won the opener, 6-5, another doubleheader was booked at approximately 5:20 a.m…Kyle Murphy was the Jayhawk's top hitter in its’ sweep (3-2, 4-1), hitting .500 (5-for-10) with a double, a triple and four runs scored, two stolen bases and an outfield assist to help Kansas, the reigning Big 12 Tournament champions, start the year 7-1….this note just in, North Dakota State's season-opening series at Kansas has been postponed three days due to inclement weather forecasted in the area…the three-game series at Hoglund Ballpark between the Bison and Jayhawks will now begin Sunday and end on Tuesday… temperatures slated to be in the 20s and chances of snow and rain forced postponement…somebody put on a pot of coffee, pass the NoDoz, call the bus driver and check the schedule at the Metrodome. Yesterday, UAB President Carol Garrison announced that Brian Mackin is the new athletics director at UAB…he joined UAB in 2002 as senior associate athletic director for external affairs responsible for fund-raising, corporate support and marketing for the athletic department…Mackin is a UAB alumnus and former Blazer baseball player…in 2006, he was named Division I-A Fundraiser of the Year by the National Association of Athletic Development Directors and under his leadership, contributions to UAB athletics have nearly tripled from $1.3 million in 2001 to about $3.7 million in 2006…Mackin was a member of the Blazer baseball team four seasons before spending a year with the Houston Astros baseball organization…the Vanderbilt baseball program achieved its highest ever ranking this week as Collegiate Baseball ranked the squad No. 3 in its weekly poll…the Commodores (3-0) swept through an impressive field at the Houston College Classic with wins over three Top 25 ranked teams, including then-No. 1 Rice in the season opener last Friday…VU’s highest ranking prior to today was No. 6 by P.O. Box 6507 Lubbock, Texas 79493-6507 www.CollegeBaseballFoundation.org Collegiate Baseball in March of 1973…Clemson, which has yet to play a game this year, moved into the top spot and South Carolina, which went 3-0 over the weekend, moved into the No. 2 spot, No. 1 in the NCBWA poll…in addition to the team honors, sophomore third baseman Pedro Alvarez led the way by hitting .500 (7-for-14), with two doubles, a triple, a homer and five RBI, including a 2-for-5 day, with three RBI, in VU's win over the Owls. Alvarez followed that performance with a 3-for-4 day, including a homer and two RBI against Arizona State…the New York City native closed out the tourney with two more hits against Baylor on Sunday… last spring, Anthony McCarron of the New York Daily News detailed the amazing story of Alavarez, who turned down millions to get a start on his college education…it’s worth revisiting. SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS - Pedro Alvarez turned down $1 million to pursue family dream of college Pedro Alvarez Sr. was at a game in the baseball-mad Dominican Republic last year when someone pointed him out to a major-league player who was there, too. "You see that man?" the mutual acquaintance told the player. "His son was drafted by the Red Sox, but he turned down almost $1 million to go to college instead." The player walked over and asked in Spanish, "Is this true? Why wouldn't you take the money?" Then the player posed the question that Pedro Sr. has heard many times since Pedro Alvarez Jr. decided with his family's help to go to Vanderbilt University rather than start a pro career: "Are you crazy?" "No," Pedro Sr. replied. But why does everyone keep asking him that? In the small bedroom that Pedro Jr. shares with his 16-year-old sister, Yolayna, in the family's two- bedroom apartment in a five-story walkup in Inwood, baseball trophies line a shelf behind one of the beds. Action pictures of Pedro Jr. playing at Vanderbilt are on the screen saver on the family computer nearby and a Vanderbilt pennant is on the wall along with photos of Pedro Jr. in uniform. A framed magazine cover hangs there, too, with a headline that proclaims Pedro Alvarez as New York's best high school player. His mother, Luz, beams as she shows the room to a visitor. While the baseball dream has always been nurtured in the Alvarez household, there is another dream, too: education. And so it didn't matter what the money could have done for the Alvarez family, who live on what Pedro Sr. makes in a job he acknowledges can be treacherous - driving a livery cab from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. in some of the rough neighborhoods of upper Manhattan. "It was tough to turn down the money," Pedro Jr. says after a recent Vanderbilt practice. "It was money we haven't seen in my whole lifetime, my parents' lifetime. "I know this is a gamble, either you're going to be 10 times better or you could lose it all. But I'm a very optimistic person. I'm going to better myself on the field and become a better person." "With an education, he can do anything," Pedro Sr. says, his Spanish translated by Yolayna. "He can still play ball and go to school and get the best out of this." So far, the 19-year-old Alvarez has, putting up numbers at Vanderbilt that make him perhaps the top freshman in the country. He was hitting .344 with 15 home runs and 51 RBI in 48 games going into the weekend. He's getting used to the "country music and cowboy hats" of Nashville, he says - a drastic P.O. Box 6507 Lubbock, Texas 79493-6507 www.CollegeBaseballFoundation.org departure from the Spanish music he likes - and he's blossoming on the diamond. In one stretch, the 6-2, 212-pound third baseman hit 10 home runs in 10 games and he's already been invited to trials for Team USA next month. With an eye on a possible economics major, he's got a 3.0 grade-point average, too. There was an empty basement in a building across the street from the Alvarez apartment and Pedro Sr. covered the walls with mattresses to muffle the sound of ball meeting bat. Pedro Jr. would take 200 swings a day there. His father also devised a drill in which he would wet tissue paper and roll it into a ball the size of an aspirin and pitch it to his son to train his batting eye. From the time he was 9, Pedro Jr. would come home from school in the early afternoon, study until his father got home at 5 and then the two would drive to a baseball academy in Stamford, Conn. to practice. When they got home around 9, Pedro Jr. would finish his homework and go to bed so he could wake up at 6 the next morning for school. One Christmas, on a trip to the Dominican Republic, father and son spent the day practicing.