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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 21, 2015)
i V SPORTS The Battalion I 4.21.15 7 Sanden "Sandy" Stewart, or "Stat Boy," has attended baseball games at Olsen Field for 11 years. Slat Boy: The Olsen Field super-fan The Battalion reporter Grade Mock spoke with Sanden "Sandy" Stewart, Class of 2008, to talk about various A&M baseball traditions. Stewart works at the Health Science Center at Texas A&M, but is known at Olsen Field as "Stat Boy" — an Aggie baseball super-fan with more than 1,500 Twitter followers who keeps statistics at the games. THE BATTALION: Of all the traditions, what is your favorite and why? STEWART: That's tough. I like the strikeout thing, that's cool. All the sound effects, [Olsen Field PA Rick Hill] up there doing effects and how the fans interact, that's a fun tradition. I really don't have one favorite tradition, I just enjoy everything really. THE BATTALION: Can you explain the pink onesie you wear in the sixth inning? STEWART: A few years ago, some guys in our section started doing this thing called, "pants down, fifth inning," and it was kind of funny. But kind of jokingly I was like, "That's stupid, I'm going to do shades on sixth." So I started doing shades on sixth, and that same year we came back a few times in the sixth inning and then we scored a bunch of runs in the sixth inning, so it kind of stuck. To advertise for shades on sixth, I had this pink onesie, and I don't know why I originally bought it, I was just like, "I'll bring it." So I brought it to the game to kind of advertise for shades on sixth and that's how that started. I've tried to stop doing it a few times and people are like, "No, you have to do it," and I'm like, "Okay, I'll keep doing it." THE BATTALION: How did the new bubble tradition start? STEWART: The players started that. Corbin Martin on the team, one of his favorite movies is Anchorman and one of the guys, the sportscaster in that movie, his catch phrase is, "Whammy." Then Patrick McLendon, he wanted something cool to do when we scored a run, so he thought it would be cool to bring a bubble machine and he named him Whammy. And, you know, the game it happened, someone hit a home run and it kind of kept going. We continued it with Whammy Jr. and then the bubble machines. THE BATTALION: What kind of reception do you get from fans? STEWART: It's fun. A lot of stuff I try to do, people don't catch on, but it's fine. The whole reason why we're here is to support the team and get into the heads of players. Another part is we enjoy making people have fun when they come to the games. It's not only the student section, it's the GA section so it's fun having families come out here and all of that. THE BATTALION: How have the baseball players reacted to this? STEWART: They love it. They love that we get involved and they just love the support and everything. THE BATTALION: If you had a walk-up song, what would it be? STEWART: I don't know, it would always change. It would always be different because I'm always changing my mind. "Cheap Sunglasses," I guess, since the whole shades on sixth thing. THE BATTALION: How did you get so into Aggie baseball? STEWART: I don't know. I barely came to games with any friends, I just kind of came on my own and then the guy in our section kind of took me under his wing and it kind of kept going. I fell in love with Aggie baseball and it kept going and going. I've only missed a handful of games in my 11th season now. SOFTBALL Late bomb from Cuyos snaps long home streak from LSU By Milkyas Gashaw Even though the Texas A&M ^ softball ultimately lost the series, a final-game 5-2 win over LSU snapped the Tigers’ perfect home record, bring ing it to 30-1 on the season. The No. 23 Aggies (34—14, 9-9 SEC) began Monday’s game with an offensive mindset, with Breanna Dozier hitting a double in the second inning to kick-start the Aggie offense. A&M capitalized on the Dozier double with getting Alex Masek and Ashley Walters on base, loading the bases for Brittany Clopton. Clopton drew a walk to give the Aggies the early 1-0 lead. The Aggies continued their rally by adding another unearned run to increase their lead to 2-0 in the third. The Tiger offense, on fire in the pre vious two games, was subdued by the pitching of Rachel Fox, who did not allow a run until the fifth inning when Constance Quinn singled to left field to drive in catcher Kellsi Kloss. The Tigers had more opportunities to score in the fifth, but A J. Andrews grounded out to the pitcher to end the inning. LSU (41-6, 13-5 SEC) tied the game in the sixth with a solo homer from Sahvanna Jaquish, but the Aggies responded in the top of the seventh with a three-mn homer from Fresh man Kristen Cuyos to put the Aggies ahead for good. The Aggies are on the road again this weekend as they battle the No. 1 Florida Gators in a weekend series. Play begins on Friday. Vanessa Pena —THE BATTALION No. 17 Logan Taylor rounds the bases during last weekend's series loss to Arkansas. With LSU looming, A&M keeps its sights set on UT-Arlington By Andre Perrard Over the weekend, the Ag gie baseball team dropped its first weekend series of the season to the Arkansas Razorbacks. On their first losing streak of the sea son, the Aggies look to rebound Tuesday in their mid-week con test against the UT-Arlington Mavericks. A&M is undefeated in mid week games this season, out-scor ing its opponents in those games 80 to 22. Looming this weekend is a three-game series in Baton Rouge against No. 1 LSU, but the Aggies refuse to look ahead. “The most important game of the year is Tuesday,” head coach Rob Childress said. “I’m not go ing to focus on next weekend. We need to get this taste out of our mouth on Tuesday and play better.” UT-Arlington (17-21) comes in after winning its conference A&M vs. UTA when 2 p.m. Tuesday where Olsen Field series against Troy this week end. Levi Scott and Travis Sibley lead the charge on offense for the Mavericks. Scott leads the team with 33 RBIs and Sibley is sec ond with 31, and both have bat ting averages well over .300 for the season. Scott leads the team with four home runs, and Sibley is second with two. The Aggies (35-5, 12-5 SEC) have many weapons in the line up, but the hottest of late is Logan Taylor. He hit two more home runs over the weekend and now has 10 on the season. Taylor also leads the team with 38 RBIs this year. Also hitting well is Nick Banks, who hit his second grand slam over the weekend. Banks, who is batting .408 on the year, said the team’s bounce-back from the weekend loss will be impor tant. “We have to respond against UTA. The response will re ally show a lot about our team,” Banks said on Tuesday’s oppor tunity. “We hadn’t lost back to back games yet, so we’ll be look ing to make a big turnaround.” On the mound for A&M will likely be freshman Turner Lar kins. In his last outing on Tuesday against Abilene Christian, Larkins went four innings, allowing two earned runs on three hits. He is 4-1 this season in 10 starts, with a 3.52 ERA. The Mavericks are 6-8 on the road this year, while A&M hold a 27-4 mark within the confines of Olsen Field. Game time is set for 2 p.m. FOOTBALL | Junior WR decides to transfer from A&M Gonzalez By Alex Scott LaQuvionte Gonzalez, one of seven wide receiv ers signed to Texas A&M in 2013, notified the public via Twitter that he will transfer. “Thank you to Texas A&M University Coaches & Fans for believing in me I Thank God For Giving Me the Op portunity To Play Here But I Have Decided To (TAKE MY TALENT ELSEWHERE),” he wrote in the tweet. Gonzalez was a four-star player upon signing with A&M. As a true freshman, he recorded 21 receptions for 240 yards, ranking fifth on the team. However, in 2014 his stats dropped to just five recep tions and 77 receiving yards. With Gonzalez departing, 15 members of the highly an ticipated Class of 2013 are no longer with the Aggies. Only two of the original seven re ceivers remain — Ricky Seals- Jones and Jeremy Tabuyo.
