Friday, May 31, 1996
Recruits should help baseball back to post-season in ’97By Yoni
Tamler
Daily Bruin Staff
With the close of each collegiate season comes the annual
melange of questions cluttering the minds of the media and fans:
Are any key players leaving? If so, will anyone be able to step
into their shoes? Are there any new faces to watch for?
For the UCLA baseball team, the answers are "yes," "maybe," and
"of course," respectively.
Most importantly, the Bruins will be spared the awful
"rebuilding process" that followed the conclusion of the 1994
season, when the team was ravaged by 25 total departures in two
years.
The conclusion of this season sees seniors Zak Ammirato and Rick
Heineman graduate, while junior catcher Tim DeCinces may leave
school early in pursuit of becoming the second generation of his
family to play in the major leagues.
While Ammirato and Heineman were integral parts of the team this
season, head coach Gary Adams should have no trouble replacing them
in the coming season. The dilemma will be finding a catcher to
succeed DeCinces, a two-time All-Pacific 10 Conference selection
and arguably the team’s most valuable player this season.
Redshirt freshman Jason Green and junior transfer Royce Valent
split time backing up DeCinces this season, but between the two of
them they have just three NCAA starts. Besides his mastery behind
the plate, DeCinces was a huge contributor to UCLA’s offense. This
season he went deep for a Pac-10 best 18 home runs, while batting
.341 with 67 RBIs, nine of those in postseason.
Another possibility at catcher is incoming freshman Brandon
Rogers, one of three players already committed to UCLA next year.
Rogers comes out of Grossmont High, the same school juniors Jon
Heinrichs and Benny Craig attended. Joining him will be Mike Hymes,
an outfielder from Torrey Pines High School (Ryan Lynch’s alma
mater) and Al Thielemann out of Orange County (Vista High).
Thielemann, a left-handed pitcher who throws in the low 90s and
also plays first base, is expected to play as a true freshman. Both
he and Rogers were invited to the U.S. Junior Olympic Team try-outs
this spring.
Circulating through Westwood is the feeling that this year’s
regional finalists were one year away from greatness. In 1997 the
Bruins return seven of nine starters and their entire starting
rotation. That gives the Bruins all but one upper-classman in the
every-day lineup, that player being freshman center fielder Eric
Valent.
***
Little Jack Santora, the unassuming 5-foot-7-inch shortstop who
clutched up mid-season when the UCLA infield’s health was in
shambles, sat helplessly in the dugout throughout most of the
Central I Regional in Austin last week.
"I’ve never been so nervous for a teammate as I was then, every
at-bat, especially when we were losing," Santora said after
returning from Texas. "You realize that every game could be your
last."
Santora started 40 games for the Bruins this season, batting
.270 with a school-record 15 sacrifice hits. But over five playoffs
games, Santora was hitless in just three at-bats.
"I was disappointed that I couldn’t contribute as much as I
wanted," Santora said. "But there were 20 other guys that wished
the same thing."
A redshirt sophomore next season, Santora looks forward to being
a regular cog in the UCLA machine. He also agreed that the Bruins
will benefit greatly from having played under post-season
pressure.
"(The players) felt they had a taste of what it’s like, and now
everybody has an experience of being in a big game like that,"
Santora said. "I’m expecting to come out and do what I do — but
anything can happen."
***
As expected, Eric Valent earned first-team Freshman All-American
honors from Collegiate Baseball. Valent tied a school record for
homers as a freshman with 12, batted .289, and knocked in 55 RBIs.
His defensive excellence in center field accounted for a .975
fielding percentage, second-best among every-day players on the
team.
***
UCLA pitcher Jim Parque began the year by winning his first
eight decisions, and finished the regular season by losing his last
three.
But that didn’t stop Parque from limiting Texas to two runs over
nine innings in UCLA’s first-round victory in the playoffs. The
sophomore all-leaguer finished the tournament at 1-0 with 14 whiffs
in 12 and 2/3 innings, meriting an All-Regional selection.
With Parque’s additional innings coming in UCLA’s 8-4 loss to
Miami in the regional final, one can’t help but wonder why the
Bruin ace did not start the game in the first place.
"If you start you have to pace yourself, and my arm wasn’t
feeling up to that," Parque said. "I could come in and throw for
three or four innings like I did, and technically I could have
started, but I didn’t think it would be good for my arm."
Parque is now packing his bags for Millington, Tenn., where Team
USA is holding its preliminary try-outs. UCLA’s Troy Glaus will
also be competing for a spot on the team.