The Battalion
F o R I'
Page 9
Friday • April 18, 1 997
ggies face arch-rival Longhorns in first-ever Big 12 series
By Matt Mitchell
The Battalion
For Parents’ Weekend and all the good
Jelings that go along with it, the Aggies
|id Longhorns will remind us of another
tifiidition, by dishing up a big batch of hate
tins weekend.
The Texas A&M Baseball Team will
uare off against the University of Texas in
three-game series beginning Friday at
sen Field. Friday’s game, a sure sellout, is
heduled to start at 7 p.m. before the series
loves to Austin and Disch-Falk Field Sat-
iday and Sunday.
I By continuing their superb play in an
8-4 win over the University of Houston,
the Aggies will enter the Texas series on
a roll.
“We’ve got all kinds of momentum,” se
nior shortstop Rich Petru said. “We’re just
going to take that right into Texas and the
rest of our conference series.”
The Aggies have good reason to be both
confident and optimistic. Texas is suffering
through an uncharacteristically subpar sea
son under first-year Head Coach Augie Gar-
rido. Despite playing only six games away
from Austin, the Longhorns (22-16, 5-10)
started the season strong, but faltered bad
ly during conference play.
“They’re not real successful right now,
“They’ve been strug
gling, but they’re still
a great team, we know
that. ”
Rich Petru
Senior shortstop
but that’s who we’re looking at right now
and we know it’s going to be a game,” ju
nior pitcher Robert Keens said. "We
know how it is — sometimes things don’t
fall your way, and we want to do every
thing we can to keep it from falling their
way this weekend. Who’s to say they can’t
turn it around this weekend, and we’ve
got to do everything we can to keep that
from happening.”
Petru echoed Keens statements, saying
one can throw out the records each time the
two heated rivals hook up.
“They’ve been struggling, but they’re
still a great team, we know that,” Petru
said. “Plus, when Aggies and Longhorns
get together, it doesn’t matter if one team
is in last place and the other is in first, it’s
still going to be a good game because
everyone plays with heart in that game.
There’s no way you can’t.”
Good defense and timely hitting, as well
as the ability of its pitching staff to avoid big
innings has helped the Aggies win 15 of their
last 18 games. Perhaps the biggest thing go
ing for the Aggies this weekend is the recent
dominance of the pitching staff, which has
improved weekly this season and may be
close to peaking.
“I think we feel real good right now be
cause we’re getting a lot of guys out there that
threw at the first (of the season),” Keens said.
“It shows we have a lot of guys to go to, and
that builds a lot of confidence in us—know
ing we can put anybody out there and they
can get it done.”
The minnow has a new skipper
lexas coach Augie Garrido talks about his first year with the Longhorns
By Jamie Burch
The Battalion
vrp~
TL
he University ofTexas
Baseball program
has a
rich
and storied past. In
IT's 100-year base-
•k )all history, the
.onghoms have
aptured 64 South
west Conference ti-
lesandfour nation-
1 championships,
wading these suc-
:essful squads were
'ecora ted skippers;
Villiam Disch, Bibb
alk and Cliff
ktstafson.
Justafson is the
JCAA-Division I
11-time winningest
oach with a record of 1,466-377-2.
Under Gustafson, the ’Horns
on two national champi-
nships in 1975 and 1983, 22
WC regular season titles and 11
WC postseason tournament ti
es. After 29 years at the helm,
Gustafson and the athletic de
partment decided it was time to
move in another direction.
A long search unearthed the
perfect candidate for the job, for
mer California
State Fullerton
coach Augie Garri
do. Garrido brings
to the program
credentials other
Longhorn skippers
established during
their reign at Texas.
Garrido, just the
12th UT baseball
coach in the pro
gram’s history, is
eighth on the
NCAA all-time win
ningest coaches list
with 1,152 victories
over 28 seasons
and third among
active coaches. In addition to the
numerous victories, Garrido has
captured national titles in 1979,
1984, and 1995.
See Garrido, Page 11
“In professional
baseball, you use
the players for
the betterment of
the game. In col
lege baseball, you
use the game for
the betterment of
the players.”
Augie Garrido
UT head coach
I
■
iHailM
I—
Photo Courtesy of Jim Sigman, UT Photo Department
UT Head Coach Augie Garrido talks with two of his players during practice.
'Bobby Earl' keeps team
on its' feet with antics
By Matt Mitchell
The Battalion
R obert (Bobby Earl) Keens does
not sing except on request,
and he has never once
charged admission at Wolf Pen. His
stage is the Texas A&M Baseball
Team, and his audience is no less en
tertained by his locker room antics.
Keens, a right-handed pitcher
used primarily out of the bullpen this
season, has assumed the role of
team cutup, and has been known to
try almost anything his teammates
put him up to.
“Sometimes it gets kind of bor
ing, and you’ve just got to do what
you have to do to keep things inter
esting,” the junior hurler said. “If
someone wants you to do some
thing, there’s no fun in not doing it.
You just bust out and do it. I mean,
I’m not scared to stick a straw up my
butt, if that’s what it takes.”
A considerably less racy creation
of Keens and the bullpen is the bur
geoning legend of Habib, the
bullpen mascot. According to Keens,
Habib just appeared one day and of
fered an interesting proposition.
“He said he may be able to turn
-
■
*4, “
a
m
JIM
Ir^Vrl
Derek Demere, The Battalion
junior pitcher Robert Keens, seen
here with Habib, warms up in the
bullpen against Nebraska.
our luck around if we took him in
and did him right, and so far he’s
paid off,” Keens said.
See Keens, Page 14
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