There will be a former Bruin playing baseball in Athens, Greece,
even though the United States did not qualify for the 2004 Olympic
Games. Nick Theodorou, who played at UCLA from 1995 to 1998, will
play for the Greek national team this August. Theodorou, like most
every other player on the Greek team, is an American citizen and
qualified to play for Greece because he has a close relative of
Greek descent. Only two players on Greece’s 24-man roster are
from the country ““ the rest are from the United States and
Canada. In his senior year at UCLA he hit .337 with two home runs
and 15 runs batted in. Theodorou currently plays for the L.A.
Dodgers Triple-A team, the Las Vegas 51s, where he was named to the
Pacific Coast League All-Star team earlier this month. With the
Olympics on the horizon, Theodorou will be making the trip across
the Atlantic in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, the rest of his team
is facing a monumental obstacle: It can’t get to Greece. It
was reported by The Associated Press on Friday that the Greek
Olympic baseball team is so short on funds that it has no money to
return for the Olympics after training in the United States.
“At this moment we do not have money to pay for the tickets
for our team to come to participate in the Olympic Games,”
Panos Mitsiopoulos, president of the Greek Baseball Federation,
told the AP.
SAVAGE PICKS UP ANOTHER RECRUIT: UCLA baseball
coach John Savage has picked up a commitment from All-Inland Empire
catcher Ryan Babineau, according to the Los Angeles Times. Babineau
went to Etiwanda High School in Rancho Cucamonga.
SERRANO TAKES OVER AT UC IRVINE: The search for
Savage’s replacement at UC Irvine ended last week when the
school hired Cal State Fullerton assistant coach Dave Serrano, the
pitching coach for the Fullerton team that won the College World
Series this year.
BRUINS IN THE MINORS: Seven of the eight Bruins
taken in the 2004 MLB Draft are playing regularly for minor league
teams along with Preston Griffin, who was signed as a free agent
after the draft. In his last start, Wes Whisler threw a complete
game three-hitter for the Kannapolis Intimidators (Class-A, Chicago
White Sox). He is one of the team’s top pitchers and also
shares time as the designated hitter for the first-place team in
the South Atlantic League. Last week Griffin was promoted to the
Chicago Cubs’ short-season Class-A team, the Boise Hawks. He
hit .429 as a rookie for the Mesa Cubs. Pitcher Casey Janssen has
become the ace for the Auburn Doubledays (Class-A, Toronto Blue
Jays), pitching them to the best record in the New York-Penn
League. Another Bruin doing well is Matt Thayer of the Eugene
Emeralds (Class-A, San Diego Padres), who is hitting .323 for the
season.