Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9505020042
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Longtime observers of Josh Herman, Matt Reynolds and Brian Young will be comforted to know that these William Byrd High School alumni have changed little through the years.
Actually, they may be comforted or disturbed, depending on their point of view.
When this trio played baseball together for the Terriers, the mood in certain opposing dugouts tended to go frosty the more Herman worked his mouth - which he did all the time.
``He won't shut up,'' John Mader said.
Mader, we may assume, is kindly disposed to all this chatter now that he is Herman's Virginia Tech teammate.
Young and Reynolds would have killed him by now if they didn't also play for the Hokies.
``Josh and I have either played against each other or with each other since the first year of T-ball,'' Young said. ``That's a long time.''
Herman is a junior in eligibility for coach Chuck Hartman's Hokies, Reynolds and Young are redshirt sophomores and they've been playing together on school teams since they were freshman Terriers, so he seems to have a point.
Reynolds is the newcomer, relatively speaking.
``I didn't start playing with them until I was in the sixth grade and we moved,'' Reynolds said. ``Before that, I was living in Roanoke and playing there and in Salem.''
Two sentences sometimes serves as a mouthful for Reynolds, which makes him a tall and mysterious foil for Herman, the compact catcher.
``He's said more in the past two years than I've ever heard him say,'' Herman said.
Young is where he's always been on this trio's rhetorical scale.
``I'm somewhere in between,'' he said.
Young is the true jock of the three, the football-basketball-baseball guy. He was the quarterback on the Byrd football team, the sharpshooter on the basketball team (Reynolds was a teammate) and the slugging first baseman on the baseball team.
When it came time to make a college choice, there was only one choice.
``He wasn't going to play college football or basketball,'' said Gary Walthall, Byrd's baseball coach when the three were seniors. ``He's a slow guy who can't jump.''
Only one place to put a fellow like that - on the mound.
Young was the most sought-after of the three coming out of high school. Virginia wanted him and Reynolds. Tech got in later, Hartman liking the 6-foot-4, 210-pound Young's fastball and the 6-5, 210-pound Reynolds' potential as a slugger and a pitcher.
It was something to be noticed on a team that went 23-1 and didn't lose until the Group AA semifinals. Nine players off that team went on to play college baseball: Chris Carr and Kevin Saunders at Radford, Andy Dewease and Gary Wiggins at Emory & Henry, Shannon Gray at Ferrum and Jason Porter at Eastern Mennonite still are active.
Reynolds didn't work out as a pitcher, but he is showing signs this season (his first as a starter in right field) of becoming a serious slugger. Through 43 games, he had eight home runs (third on the team) and eight doubles to go with 23 runs batted in and a .277 batting average.
Young, pitching in long relief, was 2-0 with a 4.29 earned run average in 21 innings.
``He's pitching pretty good right now,'' Hartman said. ``He may get a spot start before the season is over.''
Young and Reynolds had signed letters of intent with Tech before Herman got involved with the Hokies. Ferrum wanted him badly. Walthall asked Herman at the All-Timesland banquet, at which Herman was honored as the Roanoke Times & World-News baseball player of the year, if he wanted to announce he was signing with the Panthers.
``He told me not to say anything, because he thought that something might still happen with Tech,'' Walthall said.
Herman was right. Hartman wanted his bat. The question was: Where would he play in the field?
``He's got to be in the lineup somewhere,'' Hartman said.
Herman started out as a designated hitter, then moved behind the plate this year, returning to his high school position.
``You could stand Josh on his head and he'd hit,'' Hartman said.
Stand him on his head or at the top of a tall building in the breeze and he'd yap, too. You have to indulge him, though, when he's hitting .337 (third on the team) with 35 RBI (tied for second).
Young could give you all of Herman's numbers. Young could give you all the numbers for a lot of guys in a lot of sports, just as he did in high school. Young has command of the sort of statistical analysis suited to a lifelong participant of dugout debates and sports talk-show listening.
Not surprisingly, he aspires to be a coach. Reynolds is in Tech's forestry program, and Herman is bravely hammering away at the engineering curriculum.
All three of them want to play pro baseball. Herman is eligible for the amateur draft this year, Young and Reynolds next year. Their chances vary. None of them figures to be drafted early, if at all. As prospects, Reynolds would be the best, then Young and Herman.
``I've got to get a lot better,'' said Reynolds, who has 49 strikeouts in 148 at-bats.
Herman has a 5-9, 195-pound, slow-moving body working against him. But he does have that bat.
``I'm not worried about pro ball right now,'' Herman said. ``I just think about the season here at Tech.''
by CNB