UCLA baseball season struggled after loss of recruits to MLB

By Dylan Hernandez
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]

The fate of this season’s UCLA baseball team was decided
on a lazy and unassuming spring day, much like this one, two years
ago.

The blueprint for what would be the Big Bad Bruin Machine
““ the Bad in there literally meaning bad ““ was set, its
genetic material tightly fixed within the double-helix bounds of
baseball futility.

Eight picks into the 2000 Major League Baseball Draft, any
Bruin’s dreams of an NCAA Super Regional or a College World
Series in 2002 came to an end before they even started.

Head coach Gary Adams’ two most prized recruits ““
Southern California-grown pitchers Mike Stodolka and Matt Wheatland
““ had been snagged by Major League ballclubs. Stodolka went
fourth overall to the Kansas City Royals and Wheatland was chosen
eighth by the Detroit Tigers.

The two hurlers were part of what could have been the top
recruiting class in the entire country.

“We feel this has to be if not the best recruiting class
in the nation, certainly one of the top two,” Adams said in a
press release shortly after the 1999 early signing period.
“We really did a great job in landing the top pitchers,
particularly in the Southern California area.”

He added, however, “Our battle is still not over yet
because we have to compete with professional baseball for their
services.”

Adams had fought such battles before. He was surprisingly
successful at convincing prep stars that UCLA’s education and
coaching was like a million-dollar contract. Troy Glaus, Chase
Utley and Josh Karp were among those he convinced.

But Adams could not convince Stodolka and Wheatland of the
same.

The two players, now millionaires, have gone on to what have so
far been uneventful professional careers, both plagued by injury
and stuck in the lower strata of minor-league baseball.

It is questionable whether either one of them would have helped
the Bruins this year. It is, however, undeniable that they
wouldn’t have hurt. With Adams’ stellar record of
keeping pitch counts, it’s quite likely that they would have
remained healthy and made significant contributions to the
squad.

Yet, this was a season like no other, made possible only by the
absence of marquee names.

The only true blue-chip prospect Adams had on his roster was Wes
Whisler, who was a freshman.

The other players may not have been the strongest or fastest
around, but no one tried harder.

No sub-.500 team stood on the edge of the dugout for a
game’s entirety more often than this year’s Bruins. No
one crashed into more outfield walls, ran out more easy put-outs or
looked so upset after games they should have lost.

“This is a group of guys that played their hearts
out,” senior outfielder Adam Berry said. “I
wouldn’t trade them for anybody. They love baseball. They
play the game for the right reasons.”

Wins and losses, while certainly important to the players,
didn’t seem as vital as to the common observer.

UCLA was 26-35 overall and 13-16 in the Pac-10. The Bruins lost
all six of their games to USC, but that was fine. The dirt on their
jerseys were their trophies.

The improvement of each individual player was apparent and that
seemed more than enough of a reason to support the squad.

Berry, who signed with the Texas Rangers as a free agent at the
season’s end, went from being the strikeout king to the home
run king ““ actually, he retained his former title while
making his transformation ““ earning a share of the Pac-10
home run title with 18.

Whisler, with whom Berry shared the home run crown, looked
clueless at the plate early in the season, chasing breaking balls
in the dirt. But the freshman first baseman developed some patience
at the plate and belted 13 home runs in conference games.

Whisler was also a starting pitcher, going 5-2 with a 4.06
ERA.

He finished the year a Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American
and was invited to the U.S. national team trials.

Second baseman Ryan Rasmussen recovered from a frightening
bean-ball incident last year and hit .304 ““ almost 170 points
higher than he hit in 2001.

Ben Francisco, who swiped 20 bases while hitting .368,
progressed enough to be taken in the fifth round of this
year’s draft despite suffering a late-season injury.

Senior catchers Josh Arhart and Casey Grzecka hit .363 and .346,
respectively.

Freshman outfielder Billy Susdorf was a pleasant surprise,
hitting .338.

On the mound, gutsy Mike Kunes went 7-4 with a 4.55 ERA.

The numbers weren’t bad, but in the ultra-deep Pac-10,
they didn’t translate into wins.

“We were the gutty little Bruins,” Adams said.
“We were kind of like pests. We were aggravators. (In the
final postgame meeting) I told them I didn’t want aggravators
next year. I told them I want winners.”

Whatever it does, next year’s teams will have small shoes,
but big cups, to fill.

With creative contributions from J.P. Hoornstra, Daily Bruin
Senior Staff.