“Engineer blowin’ the whistle loud and long. Can’t stop a train, you gotta let it roll on.” Chuck Berry
After several daze of much-needed rainfall here in NWA, the clouds cleared up just in time for a beautiful Mothers’ Day weekend fulla college baseball at Baum Walker Stadium.
Fresh on the heels of the first conference-series beatdown of the 2024 season, Coach Dave Van Horn took some drastic steps in an attempt to generate more offense. First, he locked his team outta the JB and Johnelle Hunt Performance Center on Monday and Tuesday, giving them a forced break from baseball and encouraging them to focus on their studies.
He then fidgeted with the starting lineup (an unusual move for the normally by-the-book skipper), shifted players around the diamond and inserted some lesser-used swatters into the mix, desperate to spur the Razorbacks’ run production. For despite the number of elite arms he has at his disposal, the Razorbacks simply were not pushing enough people across home plate each game to compete for the big prize; and after 30+ years as a college D1 manager, DVH knew something must give. Besides that, this team is absolutely loaded with big-fly talent – from the floor up.
The Diamond Hogs took to the field on an unusually colorful Friday evening (highlighted by a rare visit from the aurora borealis or Polaris, if you prefer) for the first game of their final, regular-season, home stand, versus an unusually-down but always-pesky Mississippi St. team. As this season comes to a close, the conference race to the title has drawn up tighter than Dick’s hatband, with four outta the top five teams in the country hailing from the mighty, mighty SEC, and the competition competing at an all-time high.
The doctor, Hagen Smith, #33, or H. Smith, as the bacK of his jersey reads, took to the bump for his usual, Friday night appearance and in unusual fashion, promptly walked the first two batters.
Huh? What’s up?
Did our Man of Steel get the blues?
Please, say it ain’t so, Joe.
Not to worry, mate. Merely a hiccup, as the southpaw quickly rebounded by fanning the next three Bulldogs in succession with a nasty mixture of 95+ mph fastballs, big breaking curveballs, virtually un-hittable sliders, and an enormous sense of bravado not seen on a hurler since the back in the daze of Mr. Nolan Ryan or Greg “Mad Dog” Maddux (thanks Teddy).
He went on to strikeout 11 in 5 innings of work.
Back to business as usual.
WHEW!
Speaking of fastballs and such – DVH is one of the few, if any, remaining skippers in the NCAA who allows his catchers to call their own pitches, as most teams prefer those decisions to emanate from their dugout these daze. Van Horn believes that a crouching catcher has a much better feel for things than a coach, years removed from the playing the game and standing still by the bench (seems simple, huh?)
Despite wearing gear historically referred to as the tools of ignorance, catchers are always the brainiest and toughest ballers on the field (word up, Burt). The other eight fielders all face home plate and usually don’t exert much energy ‘til the ball is hit or put into play, but not so much catchers. They play a much more active and particularly brutal version of America’s Pastime than anyone else in the game – hence all the pads.
The Razorbacks travel to College Station and face the highly ranked Aggies of Texas A&M to wrap up the SEC regular season, before moving on to Hoover, Ala., for the SEC Tournament.
WPS!