ROANOKE TIMES Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times DATE: Thursday, April 17, 1997 TAG: 9704170034 SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
Little is liable to make a science teacher's heart swell with joy faster than to see a student relate lessons he learned in physics class to his everyday life.
"Physics is great,'' he said. "It explains everything in baseball.''
Explaining how Carr, a sinewy 6-foot-2 shortstop and pitcher, has come so far so fast in baseball is a little more difficult to pin down precisely.
No matter the distance, forces we don't entirely understand have brought him to where he is now. At the end of the past week, Carr was hitting .435 while playing full time at shortstop, a position to which he's moved this year.
Second base may be his favored position and it's also the one Shawnees coach Billy Wells predicts will be Carr's when he's a collegian. However, he was needed at short and Carr is the sort who is willing to take one for the team.
Similarly, that's more or less his attitude when Wells sends him to the pitching mound.
"He doesn't want to do it but he does it for the team,'' Wells said.
Carr had a tough last outing at Radford this past week, surrendering three home runs, two of them rolling on into infinity in the Bobcats' fenceless outfield during a 15-8 Radford wracking.
Never mind that pitching won't be his calling later, he has a good enough arm to have been 3-0 coming into the Radford game. Wells and Shawsville ought to be able to count on Carr most days for at least five respectable innings whenever he's dispatched to the hill.
"He's playing out of position twice but he's never complained, never said he wouldn't do it,'' Wells said.
Carr's reputation was made with a bat in his hands. As a 10th-grader, he put in a stunning, yearlong display, hitting .527 with 31 runs scored, 19 batted in, seven doubles and three triples.
That wasn't the extent of it. When he wasn't whacking the stuffings out of the ball, he still was reaching base an average of 70 percent of the time. That was accomplished with 22 walks and only one strikeout all year.
The secret behind this astounding statistic, which has been extended to nine walks and no whiffs this year?
"I don't swing at balls,'' he said. "I try to be selective until I get to two balls in the count.''
Carr can handle himself on defense as well. Knowing the physical and mental parts of both ends of the double play combination bolsters his game.
"His footwork around the bag is unbelievable,'' Wells said.
The footwork on the basepaths isn't bad either. In seven games so far this year, he's stolen nine bases.
Nobody needs a physicist to explain that you can't coach speed. Carr understands that. He understands a lot of things, as he has proved by ascending to Numero Uno in the junior class.
Out of class, he's seeing what he can do to make the Shawnees No. 1 on the baseball field.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: RAY COX THE ROANOKE TIMES. As a 10th-grader, Barnettby CNBCarr put in a stunning, yearlong display, hitting .527 with 31 runs
scored. color.