Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 30, 1994 TAG: 9403300157
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-8 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Ralph Berrier Jr.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
We'll all have to cut some slack for Gines and the rest of the Radford baseball players he coaches when they take the field to play these non-Big South Conference teams. No offense, but these games just don't mean very much to the Highlanders. League games do.
Thanks to the presidents of the Big South, Radford and everyone else in the league has to play like there's no tomorrow when they take the field for Big South games.
Here's why: Last year, under the smokescreen of academics, the Big South presidents voted not to have a postseason conference baseball tournament in 1994. They said the baseball tournament, usually held in mid-May, causing too many conflicts with final exams at some schools. Never mind the fact that nearly every other Division I conference in the country has found a way to have a baseball tournament and maintain academic standards. The Big South took the easy way out and did away with the tournament.
Amazingly, the NCAA baseball committee allowed the Big South to keep its automatic berth to the NCAA baseball tournament. That bid used to go to the Big South's tournament champ. This year, since there is no league tournament, the Big South's regular season champ gets the automatic NCAA bid.
That changes the way Big South baseball coaches and teams prepare for each weekend's three-game conference series.
``It's made a huge difference,'' said Gines. ``Huge.''
Used to be that those regular season games weren't that important, because the tournament games were the ones you had to win. If your best pitcher couldn't pitch in a league series because he had been used in a big non-conference game during the week, so be it. He'll get his shot in the tournament.
Now, with the regular-season games taking on ultimate significance, Gines has to stack his pitching staff for the weekends. Instead of being on a normal five-day rotation, Radford's pitchers often go a week without throwing in a game.
That's why you're seeing Radford lose by scores of 18-12 and 10-1 during the week. That's why a Big South school like Winthrop can't put Carl Dale and his 94-mile per hour fastball on the hill against Georgia Tech, the No. 2-ranked team in the nation, this week. He has to pitch against Radford on Saturday. That's the important game.
``It's like we're playing nine best-out-of-three conference series,'' said Gines, whose team has a 7-2 record in the Big South and is tied for first place with Coastal Carolina.
Gines has never been a fan of the Big South's shifting policies about postseason play for baseball. The format for the league tournament has changed on a yearly basis since 1988, when every league team participated in the tourney.
The Big South did away with its tournament in 1989 then reinstated it in 1990 when the NCAA awarded the league a bid. In 1992, the top-seeded teams played first-round home games, then last year, only the league's top six teams played in the tournament.
``I'm in the middle of my seventh season [at Radford] and this is my seventh different system [for postseason play],'' said Gines, who won his 150th game last week and is 151-156-4 since coming to Radford in 1988.
``These aren't sour grapes on my part, but why is baseball always getting singled out? We [baseball programs in the Big South] have a higher graduation rate, miss less class time than other sports and we're the only sport putting people in the professional ranks. What did we do wrong?''
HEY, ABBOTT!: This weekend's Radford-Winthrop series in Rock Hill, S.C., could feature a pitching match-up of Jim Abbott vs. Jim Abbott. No, it's not the Jim Abbott of the New York Yankees. Radford's Jim Abbott is a junior right hander with a 1-2 record, Winthrop's Jim Abbott is a sophomore righty who's 4-0.
If there is an Abbott-vs.-Abbott match-up, it'll be on Sunday. Winthrop's sports information department is trying to get ESPN, which will be nearby in Charlotte covering the Final Four, to drop by and get some footage from the game to show on the network's ``Baseball Tonight'' program.
No word if the Yankees' Jim Abbott plans to come up from spring training in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to watch the duel.
VAN PELT'S BELTS: Senior first baseman/designated hitter Denny Van Pelt broke out of a slump by going 3-for-4 with two home runs and raised his batting average 35 points to .276 in Radford's doubleheader sweep of Charleston Southern.
Van Pelt also has a career-high 15 steals in 16 attempts. His 15th swipe gave him 40 for his career, which broke the team record of 39 steals set by Rob Amos 1990-93.
TOMS TERRIFIC: Junior relief pitcher Travis Toms became Radford's all-time saves leader Saturday when he finished the second game against Charleston Southern to record the eighth save of his career. It was also Toms' fourth save of the season, which ties Radford's season saves record set by Chris Connolly in 1990. Connolly previously held Radford's career saves record, also. Toms' three wins are most on the staff.
SOFTBALL: Fresh off an appearance in the NCAA women's basketball tournament, all-Big South Conference guard Shannan Wilkey joined the women's softball team and went 3-for-5 in her debut on March 22 in a doubleheader sweep of Liberty.
Radford's record is just 7-25, but the seven wins are the most ever in the three-year history of the softball program.
COMING UP IN RADFORD: Baseball, March 30, Virginia Intermont, 3 p.m.; March 31, VCU, 3 p.m.; April 5, Milligan, 3 p.m.; April 9, Towson State (DH), 1 p.m.; April 10, Towson State, 1 p.m. Men's tennis,April 2, UMBC, 3 p.m.; April 10, UNC Charlotte, 10 a.m. Women's tennis, April 2, UMBC 3 p.m.
by CNB