The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, March 30, 1990, Image 7

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    he Battalion
SPORTS
7
Friday, March 30,1990
Sports Editor
Richard Tijerina
845-2688
[UNIOR;
ho
r eceii f; j
he vote
'ENIOR:
who
ho
feceite
' F ESSI0\
!d dy, win
Jt)EN ! TS[
IVES
\ed
ntai
ed
ed near
■d near
i their cer-
deadlme
said cenrei
il April i
begin vis
the I'niif
•n a censj
ially inter
survey at]
utcome #|
rimary.
hopes lor
ill becoffi
Mil'
available;
Ags'’ Thomas comes in from rain
By ALAN LEHMANN
Of The Battalion Staff
Brian Thomas just wanted to
come in from the rain.
Luckily for Texas A&M, the
freshman outfielder from Portland,
Ore. chose Olsen Field as his place in
the sun.
“It rained a lot back home,”
Thomas said. “It’s real disappointing
to spend two weeks in a gym, taking
ground balls. There’s nothing for
outfielders to do inside a gym.
“It’s hard on the mental game, be
ing inside for so long with nothing to
do except hit off the whiffle ball ma
chine.”
How did Texas A&M persuade
Thomas to move so far from home?
“A lot of it was the weather,”
Thomas said. “I wanted to get to a
place where it was nice and you
played adot of baseball games.
“A&M has a great program, too.
My family and I were really pleased
with the coaching staff.”
Although Oregon isn’t thought of
as a baseball-rich area, Thomas
played well there. Last year, he hit
.470 and was named the Oregon Ga-
torade Player of the Year.
This season, Thomas is living up
to the honor. He’s hitting .393 and
has provided speed on the bases and
in the outfield.
Coach Mark Johnson said that
Thomas has been one of the biggest
suprises on the Aggie squad this sea
son. But Thomas almost didn’t play
this year.
Because of the Aggies’ depth in
the outfield, Thomas expected to be
redshirted.
“I had accepted that I was going
to be redshirted,” Thomas said. “We
had Dan (Robinson), Chad (Brous
sard) and Tim (Holt) in the outfield.
They’d all had more experience
than me, and had been swinging the
bat real well.”
Thomas said he saw his expected
redshirt season as an opportunity to
improve, but sitting on the bench
was something new to him.
“My high school coach said that
the players on the bench were as im
portant as the players on the field,
and I thought this would be a chance
to see if he was right,” he said.
So he resigned himself to work
Photo by Jay Janner
Freshman outfielder Brian Thomas has stepped in for the in
jured Dan Robinson, and swings a hot bat for the Aggies.
w mj tu
It# I -mm
m .
W Mr
* 'iitayt v
i»»t» \f
hard and treat practice as a real
game. Thomas worked on hitting
the ball to the opposite field, because
he was weak hitter on oyitside
pitches.
Then, on March 3, Thomas saw
the extra effort pay off when John
son told Thomas he’d finally get a
chance to play.
Thomas didn’t respond well in
that first game agianst Louisian
State. He was 0-for-3 — all ground
ers to the shortstop.
He was suprised when Johnson
C ut him in the lineup three days
iter. Not that Thomas doubted his
ability to hit — the suprise was that
he’d be playing first base.
“I’d only played first base a couple
of times when I was about 13,”
Thomas said.
Still, he handled it well. He went
2-for-3 with a solid double off the
centerfield wall. He made the most
of his next chance, too — going 3-
for-4 against Iowa State in the Ag
gie-Continental tournament.
From that point, he went on a
tear, hitting .500 in his next 20 at-
bats and .400 in his next 40.
“I was real confident going up to
the plate,” Thomas said. “I was
swinging the bat well, and expecting
to get a hit.”
Not that Thomas is cocky or over
confident, he’s actually soft-spoken.
It’s just that he’s never learned to
lose. His high school and summer
league squads had been winning
teams.
Thomas was an outfielder and
second baseman in high school, but
pitched a little in short relief.
Although the scorecards at Olsen
Field list Thomas as a righthanded
hitter, he’s always been a lefty.
“When I was eight years old, my
dad tried to get me to bat righthan
ded,” Thomas said. “He told me that
since I threw righthanded, I should
bat that way, too. I said, ‘No dad, I
hit lefthanded.’”
Brian didn’t back down, and he’s
hit lefthanded ever since — a fact
that helped him break into the Aggie
starting lineup.
Since the Aggies have only two
other experienced lefthanded hit
ters —junior Blake Pyle and backup
outfielder Steve Medina — Thomas
had an added advantage.
“We were short of lefthanded hit
ters,” Johnson said. “Brian was hit
ting the ball real well in practice and
I thought he’d give us some speed
from the left side.
“And he has. He’s beaten out a lot
of infield hits, and stolen some bases
for us. He has responded extremely
well for a freshman.”
Thomas just keeps responding to
the challenge of college baseball.
Tuesday he knocked in the winning
run in the last inning to give A&M a
win over Hardin-Simmons.
He’s also shown a good eye at the
plate, walking 10 times in 19 games.
“I don’t mind getting a walk and
stealing second,” Thomas said. “It
was easy in high school, but the
catchers have better arms in colle-
s e -”
Opposing teams are begining to
realize Thomas’ talent. As a result,
he has seen a lot of breaking pitches
lately.
“I’d say college breaking pitches
are a lot better than the ones I faced
See Thomas/Page 10
No. 13 A&M
travels to face
2-3 Baylor
By ALAN LEHMANN
Of The Battalion Staff
It’s time for the No. 13 Texas
A&M baseball team to hit the road.
The Aggies will travel to Waco
Saturday to face the Baylor Bears in
a noon doubleheader.
The teams will finish the three-
game series with a 2 p.m. game Sun
day.
The first game originally was
scheduled for Friday at 2 p.m., but it
has been postponed until Sunday be
cause of bad weather.
A&M finished a 16-game home-
stand Tuesday with a twinbill sweep
of Hardin-Simmons 8-7 and 5-2.
The Aggies will take a 12-game
winning streak and a 3-0 conference
record into the weekend.
Baylor is 2-4 in conference play
after being swept by Texas over the
weekend.
Still, Aggie coach Mark Johnson
knows it won’t easy for his team to
beat Baylor.
“Baylor is a whole lot better than a
lot of people think,” Johnson said.
“They could have won four out of
six of the (SWC) ballgarnes. They
should have, but crazy things have
happened.”
Baylor might call it bad luck.
The Bears lost to Texas Friday on
a late error, but appeared to have
the final game in hand.
They led Texas by five runs until
the Longhorns scored six runs in the
bottom of the eighth inning.
“Baylor was highlighted as being
one of the top teams (in the SWC)
coming in, and they’ve got a better
ballclub than they’ve shown,” John
son said. “They’ve got good pitch
ing.
“They’re gonna be scrapping
hard, because their backs are against
the wall. They can’t afford to have
another bad weekend.”
The Aggies had a good night
Tuesday. They came from behind in
the first game and won on a Brian
Thomas single.
In the nightcap, three A&M pitch
ers combined for a Southwest Con-
fercence-record 21 strikeouts.
Reliever Bo Siberz was almost un-
Photo by Jay Janner
A&M coach Mark Johnson
(right) makes a pitching change
for reliever Steve Hughes (left)
in Tuesday’s doubleheader.
touchable, striking out nine batters
in three innings.
Third baseman Travis Williams,
who was 3-for-6 Tuesday, said the
Aggies’ winning streak should be
helpful.
“These wins give us a lot of mo
mentum going into the Baylor se
ries,” Williams said. “They were both
tight games, and they should help
our confidence a lot, even though
they weren’t conference games.”
The Aggies swept the Bears last
season at Olsen Field, 10-3, 9-8 and
12-2.
Ronnie Allen (5-1, 1.30 ERA),
Rich Robertson (6-0, 1.24 ERA) and
Pat Sweet (4-2, 3.96 ERA) are the
probable Aggie starting pitchers for
the weekend.
"SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE S"
DANA CARVEY
Eddie Farrell is a con man.
He's out of luck,
out of time and out
of money.
But he'll be
ready when...
mm
In the world of cons...
Eddie's a pro.
MM E1IMINT to
Music 1
Supervised By I
Executive!
i\ Producer I
Written |
Produced |
DOD
! MA5! N £ |PG-13|lttH«TSiTII0H6lT MUTIOWtn -SE-"] ( IMVERSAI
- - - i»—©wwifixtcnmiio': w
OPENS FRIDAY, MARCH 30 th AT A THEATRE NEAR YOU