By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Ricky Santiago of Florida Atlantic underwent open heart surgery less than a year ago to repair a hole in his heart.

He suffered from a birth defect known as Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Return that was diagnosed last season after years of suffering through shortness of breath during strenuous activities.

Blood had been flowing into the wrong heart chamber for years which was causing his heart to enlarge. While not a serious problem for children, the situation becomes riskier as a person ages.

Incredibly, his condition was misdiagnosed since he was 11 years old as a doctor felt he suffered from asthma. Only after he clutched his chest last season during a mid-March game at Rice playing first base did it hit home that another diagnosis was needed and ordered by FAU Head Coach John McCormack.

This time after a thorough exam and an MRI was performed, a hole was discovered in his heart which was an apparent genetic flaw since birth. Surgery was performed 2 1/2 months later.

Santiago said that he suffering from shortness of breath his entire life during strenuous activities but really didn’t realize it was a problem. He felt it was just part of what was transpiring because he didn’t know any other feeling.

“I started seeing a doctor at the age of 11 for this issue,” said Santiago, who plays third base for the Owls this season.

“When I was younger, I played football, basketball and baseball. Most of the time when I played football or basketball with the amount of running involved, I would experience chest pains.

“Once I started having those symptoms, my parents took me to a doctor who diagnosed my problem as being asthma as he gave me an inhaler. We pretty much left it at that until my sophomore year of college.”

Santiago said that despite the misdiagnosis, he was not in serious jeopardy of being killed from the condition as long as he didn’t wait for surgery too long.

“Once they found out what my problem was, a surgeon wanted to open me up and repair the hole in my heart as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the more enlarged your heart can get and the harder it is to fix.”

To read more of the in-depth story on Ricky Santiago, purchase the May 15, 2015 edition of Collegiate Baseball by CLICKING HERE.

By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

BERKELEY, Calif. — One of the most amazing stories in college baseball history is unfolding at the University of California.

In September of 2010, administrators announced their intention to eliminate baseball and three other teams. It was a shocking announcement since the baseball program was the oldest athletics program at the school with a proud 119-year history through the 2010 season.

The baseball program had won two national titles, including the first College World Series in 1947 and another in 1957 and had appeared in the CWS five times heading into the 2011 season. A big factor in the decision to do away with Cal baseball was Title IX.

Several months after the announcement, administrators backtracked in mid-February of 2011 as they announced that men’s rugby, women’s lacrosse and women’s gymnastics would be allowed to continue but baseball and men’s gymnastics would still be eliminated at the end of the 2010-11 academic year. It was another body blow to the baseball program.

Just prior to the announcement by Cal administrators, a report in the New York Times said that if they went through with their original plan to cut four sports and demote rugby to varsity club status, it would cause a compliance issue with the federal gender equity law and force further cuts to men’s roster spots.

The article said that administrators would be forced to cut 80 men from remaining teams and add 50 women to come into line with Title IX.

The baseball program seemed to be on death row.

What happened next was historic in the annuals of college sports. California baseball boosters came to the rescue of the baseball program, raising $10 million in two months which allowed the program to be rescued from the chopping block.

At the current time, this money is being utilized to finance the baseball program at California as a fully funded NCAA Division I varsity sport.

The Cal Baseball Foundation was established to make this happen. This remarkable group of people headed by Stu Gordon (pitcher on the Cal. 1960-61 teams) and Dan McInerny (member of the Cal 1980 CWS team) are now trying to raise $25 million for a permanent baseball program endowment so it can operate off the interest forever.

This bold plan has never been done in college athletics’ history for a varsity sport on the NCAA Division I level, according to several long time administrators Collegiate Baseball contacted.

To read more about how California rebounded from having its program cut and how painful it was losing two recruiting classes, purchase the May 15, 2015 edition of Collegiate Baseball by CLICKING HERE. The in-depth story of what Head Coach David Esquer endured, how the program fell on hard times for a few years, and how dynamic boosters formed the Cal Baseball Foundation to enrich the program with operating capital is all covered. In addition, it explains how the program came back to being a powerhouse once again in 2015.

By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

The NJCAA Board of Directors repealed bylaws which have previously capped the number of foreign athletes who have participated in NJCAA sports.

The ruling means that any NJCAA Division I and II college baseball program now can offer their entire allotment of scholarships to foreign recruits if they decide to unless their conference or school has limitations.

The effective date of this bylaw change is Aug. 1, 2015.

Scholarship offers that are being put on the table now to foreign athletes who enroll after Aug. 1 can utilize this new bylaw change. The implications of this change could change the very fabric of NJCAA athletics.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see NJCAA baseball teams made up of all Venezuelan, Dominican Republic or Mexican players,” said Edgar Soto, highly respected athletics’ director at Pima College in Tucson, Ariz. and former baseball coach with the Aztecs for many years.

“You will probably see sports such as soccer and track and field really exploit this new rule to get athletes they haven’t been able to get before. Our school won’t be doing that and will utilize athletes from Southern Arizona as we have for years. But it will be interesting to see how different schools operate under this new system.”

Some NJCAA Division I and II institutions that are in the southern areas of the nation are expected to exploit this rule as they go after talented baseball players from Latin America.

Those in the northern areas of the nation are expected to go after top Canadian baseball players.

“The previous rule limited the number of foreign student athletes who could attend NJCAA Division I and II colleges,” said Mark Krug, NJCAA Assistant Executive Director of Sports Information and Media Relations.

“You were allowed to utilize 25 percent of the total allotment of letters of intent that you could offer. Let’s take NJCAA Division I, and an institution offers 24 letters of intent for baseball. They previously would only be allowed to offer 6 scholarships to foreign student athletes.

“With the change in the bylaw, there are no limits with the number of foreign athletes you can bring in as long as the student athlete meets initial eligibility requirements from our colleges. Then once they become a full time student, they must maintain eligibility standards to be eligible for participation in any sport.”

Krug said it could happen that an entire NJCAA school could field an entirely foreign baseball team next spring.

“With this new global view and approach by the NJCAA, we still have philosophical differences within our colleges. There are conferences and schools that want their local community to feed athletes into their athletics’ programs.

To read more of this story, purchase the May 1, 2015 edition of Collegiate Baseball or subscribe by CLICKING HERE.

By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

The roadblocks of life can stop many. But highly successful Head Coach Tom Frizzell of Massasoit Community College (Brockton, Mass.) is living proof that never giving up, even after being paralyzed from the waist down, is absolutely crucial.

Now in his 25th season as head coach, the 65-year-old skipper is believed to be the only coach in college baseball history to lead a team from a wheelchair to a national championship as he directed the Warriors to a NJCAA Division II national title in 1993.

He has led Massasoit to three NJCAA Division II World Series and two trips to the NJCAA Division III World Series while compiling a 678-304 record entering the 2015 season.

He was paralyzed during a horrible accident. As a 27-year-old, he had earned his Master’s Degree and was a bright, young administrator at Davis School in Brockton, Mass.

On Nov. 1, 1977 at about 7:30 p.m., he was opening up a parent counseling meeting. At the time, he was standing next to a cinder block wall.

Unknown to him, a heavy set woman was leaning against a second block wall behind him which gave way. That wall crashed into the wall directly behind Frizzell which fell on top of him and severely damaged his spinal cord. He became paralyzed from the waist down.

It was later determined that neither cinder block wall had any concrete inside to fill the hollow blocks – only sand.

Frizzell would now endure a life in a wheelchair as it took eight months of rehabilitation and soul searching before he could get back to work.

Little did he know that life would turn for the better. He eventually decided to teach as a Professor of Business with his specialty being sports marketing at Massasoit C.C.

Frizzell had a huge background in baseball prior to the accident, and many knew his passion for the sport.

One day in 1986, Massasoit Head Coach Billy Mitchell asked Frizzell if he would consider working with his kids on the baseball team.

“Initially, I was very hesitant,” said Frizzell.

“I told Billy that I couldn’t walk. But Billy told me that he knew I played baseball and had a lot to share with the kids. I went to a few practices. For a year, I showed up periodically with the feeling that I didn’t have much to offer these kids.

“Later, I became more involved and actually became an assistant coach. The kids were extremely supportive of my handicap and only wanted to learn more about the game of baseball. I worked with infielders and hitters. It became a great thing to do for me in addition to my teaching responsibilities as a full professor.”

After the 1990 season, Mitchell took another job at a different institution which left the Massasoit job open.

Frizzell, who had now been assistant for three years with the Warriors, applied for the job but had no idea whether administrators would take him seriously or not.

“I was granted an interview, and I was asked point blank whether it would be difficult for me to recruit players to play since I was confined to a wheelchair. I explained that I had been heavily involved in recruiting. My philosophy was to recruit the parents and tell them that I couldn’t offer their son a lot of money in the way of scholarship help, but I would be available seven days a week since I was a Professor of Business. I was almost always in my office except when teaching classes. That was an important selling point about our program. It was comforting to parents to know that I was available much of the time.

“A lot of coaches at junior colleges are part time and aren’t easy to get in touch with. I also did not go to the houses of recruits. I asked them, along with their parents, to come to my office which had a much better setting. I also explained that I had learned all the ropes of this program through Coach Mitchell for the past three years and was well aware of what needed to be done to keep the baseball program on a high level.

“Ultimately I struck a deal with the Athletics Director that if I didn’t win, I would resign. So he agreed, and the rest is history.”

Frizzell said his first year as head coach was one he will never forget.

“We whipped off a 32-9 record that year. Two years later, we won the NJCAA Division II national championship. Then in 1995, we finished fourth in the nation at the World Series. After switching to NJCAA Division III, we went to the World Series two times with fourth and third place national finishes.”

To read more about the amazing Tom Frizzell, purchase the May 1, 2015 edition of Collegiate Baseball or subscribe by CLICKING HERE. It explains how he can still throw four rounds of batting practice, how his players help him when problems come up with his wheelchair, tasteless comments he has received, why he was ejected from a game, how he has coached third base from time to time and how his team pulls off the double suicide squeeze play.

By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

Florida St. has utilized a tactic for years that pays off with loads of runs. Under hitting coach Mike Martin, Jr., hitter discipline has been one of the key components in the offensive production.

A byproduct of hitters who don’t chase anything in sight is walks. The Seminoles currently lead the nation with 213 walks in 29 games which is 46 more than second place Mississippi St.

FSU hitters are averaging 7.3 walks per game this season which has forced pitchers to throw hitter’s pitches.

When pitchers throw strikes, Seminole batters routinely crush them as attested to 90 extra base hits (58 doubles, 29 homers and 3 triples).

Seminole hitters refuse to buckle on inside pitches as they have been hit 48 times (4th in the nation). Fourteen different hitters have been plunked this year.

When you add it all up, FSU’s on-base percentage is No. 1 in the nation at .424. The net result of all this offensive activity is that FSU is No. 2 in the nation in runs (241) and No. 3 in scoring (8.3 per game).

To prove hitter discipline works, FSU’s batting average currently is only .271 (130th out of 301 NCAA Division I teams), which is well below what Seminole teams typically produce under Coach Martin. But runs are still being scored in droves.

Entering his 18th season as the team’s hitting coach, Martin is widely recognized as one of the bright minds in baseball.

Heading into the 2015 season, the Seminoles under Martin have batted .309, averaged 7.97 runs per game and posted a .482 slugging percentage over the past 17 seasons. Florida State has played in six College World Series, 13 Super Regionals and 17 consecutive NCAA Tournaments.

The Seminoles have batted .300 or better 11 times and posted an on-base percentage of at least .400 15 times. Six of the top 11 hitting teams in FSU history have come under Martin’s watch.

“Mike, Jr. is tireless in his approach to teaching home plate discipline with our hitters” said FSU Head Coach Mike Martin, the Seminoles’ skipper the past 36 years and father of Mike, Jr.

“He has utilized this approach for many years, but it takes a great deal of effort to refine the discipline of hitters when they first come into the program. He throws batting practice to our guys nearly every day.

“But he is big on not having our guys swinging at a pitch early in the count that is a borderline strike. If the ball is on the outside corner, first pitch, we call that a pitcher’s pitch. We won’t swing at that.

“Now as we get into the count, that mentality of course changes. If a guy is able to throw pitches there all day long, then of course we must make adjustments. But early in the game if he is having trouble, we won’t go out and swing at something quickly that’s off the plate.”

The FSU skipper said that his hitters over time become comfortable with this approach.

“I’m not saying this is the best approach. Every coach is different in his offensive philosophy. Ours just happens to be that we preach this concept and work on it every day. When you are disciplined like this, it allows our hitters to get good pitches to hit more often than not.

“I would like to emphasize that we don’t go to the plate to walk. We don’t want anybody to think that’s what we do. If hitters ever go to the plate with the thought of walking, they shouldn’t take their bat with them. Our hitters are going to be aggressive if the ball is in the strike zone. Guys who we recruit didn’t come to Florida St. to walk. We want every recruit to realize that when a pitch is thrown for a strike, we try to rip it.

“But when a pitch is off the plate, and you swing at it, you are doing the guy on the mound a big favor. And we don’t like to do those type of favors.

“We just want to be sure our hitters know their own strike zone. And Mike, Jr. deserves the credit for doing such a great job at teaching our guys what they are.”

To read more about this in-depth story on hitting discipline and why it produces loads of runs, purchase the April 17, 2015 or subscribe by CLICKING HERE. The rest of the story includes how long it takes to train a disciplined hitter at Florida St and the entire process of being disciplined from former Oklahoma State Hall of Fame coach Gary Ward and why it works.

By LOU PAVLOVICH, JR.
Editor/Collegiate Baseball

What does it take to be a great baseball coach? LSU Head Coach Paul Mainieri might be the perfect person to answer this challenging question.

With a 1,225-641-8 record in 32 years as a collegiate coach entering this season, he has had incredible success coaching at St. Thomas University (1984-88), Air Force (1989-94), Notre Dame (1995-2006) and now LSU (2007-present).

The 57-year-old Mainieri, who was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2014, joined his father Demie as the first father and son Hall of Famers in the history of this organization.

They also are the first father and son duo to each win 1,000 games during their college baseball coaching careers.

Demie won 1,012 games over 30 years at Miami-Dade North Junior College in Miami, Fla. and over 100 of his former players were drafted or signed by professional teams, 30 of whom made it to the Major leagues.

Imagine being Paul, who at the tender age of three, being allowed to watch a game from the dugout during one of Miami-Dade North’s baseball games.

His mother Rosetta, concerned Paul might get hurt, insisted that he follow his dad everywhere he went for safety reasons.

When Demie was forced to make a pitching change in the game, Paul followed his dad out to the mound without Demie’s knowledge. Everyone in stadium started laughing.

Little did anyone realize that a Hall of Fame coaching career was just starting as Paul soaked in everything about the game of baseball even at that young age.

Paul is not simply a coach. He is a master teacher who cares deeply about his players. But he is brutally honest as well. Beyond baseball, he expects his athletes to be academically sound and also devote time to community service to help those in need or less fortunate.

The core of his baseball knowledge comes from four tremendous baseball minds, including his dad Demie, New Orleans’ Head Coach Ron Maestri and former Los Angeles Dodgers’ manager Tommy Lasorda — all Hall of Famers.

He also learned quite a bit from Jim Hendry, former coach at Columbus H.S. (Miami, Fla.).  Hendry later became the Head Coach at Creighton University and led the Bluejays to a third place finish at the 1991 College World Series.

Hendry was hired to be General Manager of the Chicago Cubs and then became a special assistant for the New York Yankees. 

“I had a very unusual upbringing being the son of a great coach and teacher,” said Paul.

“But it wasn’t just my dad. My mother Rosetta was also a teacher. So I was the son of two teachers. In that day, teaching and coaching were considered prestigious professions that impacted young people’s lives. You felt like you were making contributions to society because you were helping develop young people to be successful.

“As a coach, it would be on the athletic field. But in the long term, you were helping kids prepare for the challenges they would face in life and teach them how to prepare to be successful. As I grew up with my four siblings, we would eat dinner every night together with my parents. And they would talk about the virtues of teaching, serving others and having an impact on other’s lives.

“That was the thing that captivated and intrigued me. Most other young boys grew up wanting to be Major League baseball players. Quite frankly, I grew up wanting to be a college or high school baseball coach.

“I heard my father numerous times talk about the great college coaches who were in the game at that time, including Danny Litwhiler (Michigan St./Florida St.), Rod Dedeaux (Southern California), Bobby Winkles (Arizona St.), Dick Siebert (Minnesota), plus many others. These were the people he spoke about over the dinner table, and these were my idols as I grew up.

“For me as a youngster, I loved playing the game of baseball. But I wanted to be a coach. As an athlete playing baseball in high school and college and besides wanting to do well and help our team win, I was constantly learning from coaches. Sometimes it was learning how not to do things.

“Sometimes I would see how certain things were done, and I thought to myself that when I was a coach I wouldn’t do it that way. I also picked up a lot of great ideas to become a better coach.

“As a boy growing up, it was a remarkable learning environment from two extraordinary teachers. As an athlete, I was fortunate to be exposed to a lot of different coaches and their styles, what they taught and how they taught it. I was a sponge and wanted to learn from all of them, some good and some bad stuff. All of them influenced me in some way.”

To read more about what it takes to be a great baseball coach, purchase the April 17, 2015 edition of Collegiate Baseball or subscribe by CLICKING HERE. The rest of the article includes Mainieri’s offensive philosophy, the influence of Tommy Lasorda, what it takes to be the very best, handling cancers on a team, why honesty is crucial in coaching, being a caring coach, what he learned from each coaching stop, his four pillars of success and why his kids don’t give up.