Men’s baseball exhibits talent, stats to break 22-year pattern

Tuesday, March 4, 1997

OPINION:

This season’s amazing play signals team can go all the way

Make no mistake when you hear those distant booms in the night.
It isn’t an electrical storm or terrorists attacking the Veterans
facility, it’s a UCLA baseball game.

You want firepower, you want voluminous offense, you want tidal
waves of runs? If you check out the launching pad known as Jackie
Robinson Stadium, you’ll find it.

It is there the Bruin baseball team makes the Natural look like
Rafael Belliard with numbers like these…

After only 23 games, UCLA has to its credit:

Fifty-five home runs. One more time, 55 home runs! Last year, in
a full campaign, the Bruins hit 77. After only one-third of this
season, they’ve almost matched it and they are nearly halfway to
the team record of 116 set in 1987.

Seventeen games where the scoring reached double figures with
nary a shutout.

Eight players hitting over .300, with two cresting .400.

With all of this production, the Bruins have jumped out to a
20-2-1 record and the number one ranking in the nation. A fast
track to the College World Series?

It’s about time.

This is a team that, no matter how much talent you put into it,
has found a way to avoid going to the Series. Sure, they make
regionals on a pretty consistent basis (six of the last 11 years),
but when it comes to the big dance, it’s duck-and-cover time.

The year was 1987. The team was stacked with the likes of Todd
Zeile, Eric Karros, Torey Lovullo (the first player to repeat as
Pac-10 player of the year), and All-American pitcher Alex Sanchez,
but all that was in the offing was a trip to the regional
finals.

Fast forward through eight more years of disappointment to 1995,
when the backbone of this year’s squad ­ Troy Glaus, Eric
Byrnes, Pete Zamora, and Jim Parque ­ were freshmen. This team
dropped 11 of its last 17 to drop out of contention for postseason
play.

Now, on to last year. These same players were all one year
older, but the regular season swoon was repeated, as the Bruins
dropped five of its last seven. In the regionals, the team came up
one game short of making that elusive trip to Omaha.

Amidst this group with a knack for gaudy statistics and
late-season folds, the picture of consistency is Head Coach Gary
Adams. Adams, in his 23rd season as head coach, recently became
UCLA’s all-time winningest coach with 747 wins. Through his "Bruin
Way" philosophy, Adams has sent well over 100 players into
professional baseball and has graduated 80 percent of his
players.

He also has two national championships to his credit.

Trouble is, they both came with UC Irvine.

Twenty-two years without a single trip to the College World
Series. Eric Karros, Todd Zeile, Shane Mack, two Olympians and no
trips to Omaha.

It’s hard to believe that he has kept his job this long being so
consistent.

His graduation rates and professional contributions are
unquestionably admirable, but right or wrong, that is not what
grabs headlines or extends contracts.

Now, as in days of yore, a team has been put together under
coach Adams with all of the talent in the world, as well as a chip
on its shoulder after 22 years of coming up short.

It’s eerie how this team mirrors the underachievers of the past.
The Bomb Squad of the 1980’s has entered the second coming. The
teams that bottomed out the past few years? Look across the lineup
and many of the faces are the same. Just for garnish, the coach is
the same.

No matter how much fun it is to look at the ridiculous box
scores that this team puts together, it’s hard to get behind them
when looking at this group’s pedigree.

But now they are all a year older, and for the crux of the team,
this is their last shot, as the professional draft beckons. With
one last crack at glory and 22 years worth of demons to exorcise,
it’s time to book those tickets to Omaha.

Shapiro is a Daily Bruin columnist and the men’s tennis beat
writer. He can be reached by e-mail at
[email protected].