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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 28, 1988)
Thursday, January 28,1988/The Battalion/Page 13 Sports gs gear up for another shot at the SWC ys de. Mlion the ( er . ions. h Kk. nd t i, e afTev, ' action - ca|| e( | emenf if ^ Klee Texaco enders a had - Klee ruptev [ as to n lan ion" of e set- nzoil’s ivative stock f Pen- he sen "'ere ge in- hedf. of the il was d/’he loiher e has ion is, osuge By Anthony Wilson Sports Writer B In 1988, the Texas A&M baseball |eam will be trying to improve on a eason that saw it win 44 of its 67 antes and miss advancing to the lollege World Series by one game. In doing so, the Aggies will return even of its eight position players, in- Part one of a two-part series luding the Southwest Conference layer of the Year for 1987, Scott .ivingstone, and three talented ophomores who carry big sticks: ohn Byington, Chuck Knoblauch nd Terry Taylor. A&M Head Coach Mark Johnson lays he thinks hitting will be the least This worries this year. ‘The strength of our team’s going to be in our hitting,” Johnson said. We’re returning quite a bit of our power. Not that we had an over- tbundance, but we had 57 home runs and we’re returning guys who iiit52 of those.” A&M set a school and SWC re- ord in 1987 by batting .347 as a team. Leading the way was third jaseman Livingstone. Livingstone, a senior, batted .403 with 19 home runs and 18 doubles. Although he missed 10 games of the eason with a separated shoulder, Livingstone set a school record with 72 runs scored. His 76 runs batted in anks second in the Aggie record book. Entering this season, Liv ingstone is well within reach of all of A&M’s career batting records. During the summer, Livingstone, second-team All-American, made the Olympic team by helping the United States capture a silver medal ■in the Pan American Games. “Scott carries a big stick and does a good job defensively,” Johnson id. “There’s a lot of pressure on :ott to do well because he’s return- ig as an All-American. It means a otof teams will be gunning for him nd maybe pitching around him. It neans John Byington, who’s hitting behind him, has to have a good year.” Last season “Big John” Byington had a record-setting season of un heard of proportions for a fresh man. Byington rewrote the books with school records in hits, with 96, RBIs, with 78, doubles, with 22, and total bases, with 171. He also placed in the top three for a season in at bats, runs and home runs. Byington, the 1987 SWC Newcomer of the Year, hit .372 with 19 dingers. Classmates Knoblauch and Taylor also had superb freshmen seasons. Knoblauch played in all 67 games, hitting .341 with 89 hits, third best in school history, and 20 doubles. His 23 stolen bases was third best for an Aggie. Knoblauch was named to the A1I-SWC team. Taylor led the team with 48 walks and hit .305 with 16 doubles and six homers. The second baseman was also an integral part of the school re cord 85 double plays the team turned last season. Johnson is hoping the three fresh men, who batted in the four, five and six positions most of the season, will be able to avoid the dreaded sophomore jinx. “We have three sophomores, who were second-team freshmen All- Americans,” Johnson said. “They’re probably under more pressure than anyone else because now they have some goals and statistics in front of them. Coming in as freshmen, they could have hit .280 and people would have said, ‘Great year.’ No body knew what they could do. “Now they’ve set a standard — a high standard. That sophomore jinx thing — I don’t believe in jinxes — but 1 do believe there’s some cre dence there. You say, ‘We’ve got a guy, we know can hit .350. Now he’s got to prove it again this year.’ Last year they didn’t have to prove any thing.” , A&M’s biggest asset this season may be its experience. “If you look at our position play ers, we basically have the same group back with a couple of changes,” Johnson said. “We have some new guys, but we have a lot of old guys in the positions.” Byington is once again scheduled to be the designated hitter. Liv ingstone and Taylor will man their infield positions. They will be joined by junior Jim Neumann at first base and seniors Maury Martin and Eric Albright at catcher. Knoblauch will move from centerfield to shortstop to replace Ever Magallanes. In the outfield, senior Tim Mc- William will be positioned in left field and sophomore Daron Dacus in right field. Junior transfer Kirk Thompson is the leading candidate to be the Aggies’ centerfielder. Thompson transferred from San Jacinto Junior College, where he was a starter on its national championship teams the past two seasons. Seemingly, the only question mark A&M has this season is the pitching. Graduation depleted A&M’s 1987 senior-laden staff. “We graduated 26 wins off our pitching staff,” Johnson said. “Half of our wins were lost. That’s the real crux of the problem — can our other pitchers and our new pitchers come on. Those are questions that are un answered until we start playing. Pitching may be a strength, too. But it’s a question mark right now.” The top returning pitcher is se nior Sean Snedeker. Snedeker posted an 8-2 record with a 4.05 earned run average in 1987. He racked up 60 strikeouts in 86.2 in nings. Also returning will be junior Scott Centala. Centala had a 6-3 record and 4.97 ERA last season. Johnson will be looking for contri butions from junior college transfers Nick Felix, Jeff Jones and Fred Ris- cen. “We’ve got some new junior col lege transfers who were the work horses in their programs,” Johnson said. “But I wouldn’t label anyone a workhorse right now.” A&M’s pitching staff lost a top- notch prospect with the loss of Brian Bohanon. Bohanon, the state’s pre miere high school pitcher last year, signed a letter of intent with the Ag Third baseman Scott Livingstone will lead the Texas A&M baseball team into another seaso. Battalion file photo gies, but opted to play professional ball when he was drafted in the first round by the Texas Rangers. It was the second time in three years A&M has lost a pitching pros pect to the pros. But Johnson said the lost scholarship hurt most. “Obviously we felt he was ex tremely important because we spent a lot of time recruiting him,” John son said. “We felt like he could come in and be an accomplished pitcher fairly quick. “It’s hurt us because you go all the way up until the end of June before you find out the guy’s going to sign. So we can’t go out and recruit with that scholarship. All the other guys have signed. The blue-chip guy who has done extremely well in the pre vious season is not available.” A&M’s defense should be as good as last year’s, with Knoblauch’s play at shortstop the only question mark. Knoblauch has not played short since he broke his leg his senior year in high school. Filling AI1-SWC shortstop Ever Magallanes’ shoes will be a big task. “We have Knoblauch and Andy Duke playing shortstop,” Johnson said. “Both of them are good ath letes. But, they’re not Ever Magal lanes. That’s not a derogatory com ment about Chuck or Andy. It just simply says that Ever Magallanes was an exceptional college shortstop. And they don’t come around too of ten. It’ll be difficult to replace his de fensive play. “Chuck Knoblauch has not played shortstop for two years. If he im- E roves every day, he has a chance to e an outstanding shortstop. Cer tainly he’s not as good as Ever right now.” In preseason polls, A&M was ranked sixth by Baseball America and 15th by Collegiate Baseball. Johnson said the high rankings were nice, but that preseason polls in col lege ball don’t mean much. “It’s hard to say that because a team was good last year, they’re going to be good this year,” Johnson said. “They may have lost three of their guys who were juniors. Or they may have picked up two junior col lege transfers who were All-Ameri cans. So teams change rather abruptly, much more so in baseball than in football and basketball. “I’m not opposed to our high ranking. I think sixth in the nation may be a little off. But who knows? “But we’re flattered by the atten tion we’re getting in the national polls. We think there’s some justifi cation for it.” WMNMMHIHM along with Presents: BORA! BORA! Sat. Jan 30 Zephyr Cookout Sun. Jan 31 Superbowl Party _ For more Rush info, call: Tom 696-9440 TAMU ~;' < v