Collegiate Baseball The Voice Of Amateur Baseball Started In 1958 At The Request Of Our Nation’s Baseball Coaches Vol. 62, No. 3 Friday, Feb. 8, 2019 $4.00 Run Production Is Ultimate Metric Higher launch angles result in more strikeouts which means fewer runs, wins. By DR. COOP DeRENNE University of Hawaii ONOLULU, Hawaii — We are in the era of analytics and the strikeout. Major HLeague Baseball tracts every pitch and swing for data. Universities and high schools follow their lead. Thus, hitting mechanics have been diagnosed, dissected and discussed more than any baseball topic except possibly pitching mechanics. How should you swing the bat? Research gives us the answer. Humbly, our research teams at the University of Hawaii have conducted as much scientific research as any group in the country since 1980. The best Hall of Fame hitters since 1900 have been analyzed under pure research conditions, Hitting Researcher Dr. Coop DeRenne See NUMBERS VIVIDLY , Page 6 Coach Only Has 2.5 Scholarships To Work With RESURRECTING PROGRAM FROM THE SCRAP HEAP Dynamic young coach CJ Bilbrey turns around 0-48 team into 30-game winners last 2 years with collection of kids from broken homes, some who are homeless. By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR. Editor/Collegiate Baseball T. LOUIS, Mo. — A remarkable story is unfolding at Harris-Stowe State University. Founded in1887, this NAIA Sinstitution has an undergraduate enrollment of about 1,400 located in St. Louis and has a baseball program that is unique. Head Coach CJ Bilbrey only has 2.5 scholarships to work Typically we have with and a total budget of $20,000. His yearly salary as the skipper is $4,000 while his lead “loads of kids who are assistant earns $4,000 and a third coach $1,000. He also has several volunteer coaches. The rest of the money goes toward running the from broken families. program. It isn’t unusual to Every year, his players bring in an extra $50,000 through fundraising efforts by working St. Louis Cardinals' games, a PGA have 90 percent of tournament, Six Flags and other events with the money being used our players on Pell for travel, food and other necessary areas within the program. To save money, many meals on road trips are peanut butter Grants. and jelly sandwiches which are affectionately called "Stowe — CJ Bilbrey, Head Coach Steaks" by members of the team. Harris-Stowe St. Univ. On all but one road trip, coaches drive two vans to away DAVID ESQUER CONQUERS BIG PROBLEMS — Stanford games which also saves money to destinations as far away as six Head Coach David Esquer (left) has not had it easy as a coach. The former skipper at California for 18 years saw this historic See REMARKABLE STORY UNFOLDS, Page 2 program eliminated before alumni rallied to raise millions of dollars to save it. Now he is at his dream school. See page 4. Inside C”ollegiate Baseball Web Site: www.baseballnews.com Balancing Baseball & Academics Ruleball With Rich Marazzi Top California H.S. Players Nobody does it better than Coach Rules guru collects great questions Iran Novick presents his annual Mitch Thompson at McLennan J.C. during 2018 season and shares his rundown on quality athletes from as players excel at both/Page 9 keen insight with answers/Page 10 this baseball hotbed/Page 11 Page 2 Collegiate Baseball Friday, Feb. 8, 2019 Remarkable Story Unfolds At Harris-Stowe State Continued From Page 1 players. 12 batting cages, eight bullpen the head coach at the time, and he The cost of jerseys and practice mounds and indoor infield with worked tirelessly. hours. The one bus trip with a hired gear is typically picked up by three practice turf areas. “It just got to be too much. He driver typically includes all of the different family members as a In 2013, Harris-Stowe suffered got out of coaching and is selling team as a thank you for fundraising Christmas gift to players. Once through the torture of 5-38 season. insurance now and doing well for efforts. a player graduates or leaves the After the last game, it was himself. Because of money constraints, program, he takes his jerseys and discovered that one of the players “I left Southern Illinois- each player is required to purchase practice apparel with him as a had dropped out of school before Edwardsville, an NCAA Division three jerseys — home pinstripe special memento. the season ended and never told any I program, to be a part of an 0-43 white, away brown plus a special Hats, belts, socks and pants are of the coaches. NAIA program as a volunteer. jersey designed every year by the all supplied by Harris-Stowe. So all five of those wins were The reason I was interested in this seniors in addition to practice gear. The payoff for all of this sacrifice vacated as the season record position was because I played for The entire cost is about $300. by players is being able to practice nosedived to 0-43. Harris-Stowe four years (2004- Bilbrey and his wife Crystal own six days a week when cold weather “I arrived at Harris-Stowe in the 07) before starting my coaching a shirt company and make all of the hits at the All-Star Performance fall of 2013, and it was rough,” said career. players’ practice apparel in their facility in St. Louis six days a week. Bilbrey. “I immediately jumped into kitchen to reduce the total cost for It is 50,000 square feet, including “My buddy David Estes was recruiting when I got there. When CJ BILBREY I called up kids to recruit them, many weren’t that good. But we needed eligible bodies at that point to field a team. I was going after pitchers who threw 81-82 mph. They would routinely tell me that they would rather retire than go to Harris-Stowe. “I told them good luck. We are going to continue working hard and will be much better in the coming years. “In that first recruiting class I helped with, only one guy ultimately was with us for four years. In his last two years, he helped the team win 60 games over the 2017 and 2018 seasons.” In 2014, the Eagles won 11 games which was followed by 14 in 2015. Bilbrey was named head coach, and Harris-Stowe won 18 games in his first season as skipper in 2016. Then the team broke through with 30 wins in both 2017 and 2018 — only the third and four time a baseball team at Harris-Stowe has won 30 or more games in the 75- year-history of the program. Also impressive is that 43 of his players have earned American Midwest Conference Academic All-Conference selections as well as five NAIA Scholar Athlete Big League Chew was invented by Rob Nelson, a former Cornell awards since 2016. University lefthander who was pitching in Oregon in 1977 for the Homeless Kids Bilbrey is proud of the blue fabled Portland Mavericks when he came up with the idea for a new collar kids he and his staff recruit to his program. type of bubble gum. “During the past fall, we had four kids who had been homeless at some point in their lives,” said Bilbrey. Rob was literally sitting in the Portland bullpen, watching his team- “Typically we have loads of kids who are from broken families. It mates chewing other less salubrious stuff, when he thought that isn’t unusual to have 90 percent of our players on Pell Grants shredded bubble gum would be a much more fun option. (awarded to undergraduate students who display exceptional financial need). “Kids we typically bring in are Rob shared the idea with Mav teammate Jim Bouton who liked the hardnosed, intense workers who have a passion to play.” concept so much he spent the next two years searching for a gum Bilbrey talked about freshman company to manufacture and distribute Big League Chew. He outfielder Maurice Lafon. “Maurice is from Albuquerque, succeeded, and BLC quickly became the must-have bubble gum for N.M. His dad went to prison, and his mom disappeared. He was ballplayers in the littlest leagues to the Big Leagues. raised by different families in that area and bounced around a little bit. Maurice worked at Popeyes Chicken back in Albuquerque. As Today, over 40 years later, Big League Chew is the #1-selling soon as he got here, he found a Popeyes so he could keep working shredded bubble gum in the world — with over 800 million pouches while going to school and playing baseball. sold. It is manufactured in the USA by Ford Gum of Akron, New York. “The topper with this young man is that he is a Presidential Scholar who had a 4.0-plus weighted grade ™ point average in high school and a ® 29 ACT score. He essentially goes BIG LEAGUE CHEW AMERICA’S BUBBLE GUM to school for free here. “A friend of mine from Coaches Discount now available at bigleaguechew.com Albuquerque was coming to St. See ATHLETES WHO, Page 5 Friday, Feb. 8, 2019 Collegiate Baseball Page 3 Collegiate Baseball G.O.A.L.S. Can Be The Start The Voice Of Amateur Baseball Of Something Special In 2019 By JUSTIN DEHMER Special To Collegiate Baseball More On Dehmer Collegiate Baseball (ISSN 0530-9751) is published twice a month NORWALK, Iowa — Justin January-May and once in June, July, September and October NORWALK, Iowa. — Every Dehmer is one of the brightest (14 total issues) by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, Inc., 2515 year begins with a chance to make baseball people in the business.