Cowboy Baseball Newsletter

Nov. 20, 2002

COWBOY BASEBALL NEWSLETTER (11/20/02)

OSU's schedule loaded with top talent, impressive RPIs
By Katy Jones

Oklahoma State baseball coach Tom Holliday has been with the Cowboy program for 26 years, and Holliday said this season's schedule is the most difficult he's seen.

Holliday's plan for the 2003 season was to establish a good RPI for the Cowboys by playing strong RPI teams. Holliday said a stronger RPI than last season's 43 will be needed to get into the NCAA Tournament.

"I think because of where we're located, away from our league, the highest RPI of the teams that are left to play in this area is about a 120," Holliday said. "And in order to upgrade from a 39 or 40, the only way to move up is to play a better schedule."

"Now, to play a better schedule, we're forced to go outside our region to play teams."

Holliday added that most of the early season away games will be in areas with agreeable weather.

"In February it's too much of a gamble for us to bring in West coast or ACC or SEC people into Stillwater," Holliday said. "I think if you're gonna, spend money to travel, you're better off going to places where you're guaranteed good weather so you can get good work in. We think we did that in the first three weeks of this schedule when we go to Florida and Arizona, and we're gonna play nine teams of which we're only playing one team with a bad RPI.

"We could be jeopardizing a better record at the beginning, but you're either gonna try to get an RPI and show people you're not afraid to play the best, or be 9-0 and have played bad people and get nothing out of it."

Besides enjoyable weather and facing top opponents, the Cowboys will be able to look forward to very few mid-week games, since Holliday has scheduled mostly weekend tournaments.

"Mid-week baseball is dangerous, and if I had to go back over last year and do something different, the game against Southeast Missouri when they didn't play the whole weekend and they come here, that's what I would change," Holliday said.

"They got their No. 1 and 2 guys on the mound and we had to go downstaff, because we came off a weekend in league play, and they beat us. If you're gonna, play teams like that midweek, you're gonna have to lineup on equal ground."

"The only way around it is to start a little bit early play early in February to avoid midweek games. Just don't play in them. I think we have 10 this year, and that's the fewest midweek games ever.
And they're all played at home except for one game."
The schedule consists of an equal amount of home and away games, 28-28.

"If we end up with a 35 or a 37 win season this year, as we did last year, I think people will look at that schedule we played and say, `Wow, these guys have played a heck of a schedule," Holliday said. "As we pass our schedules around people have said, `You,re sticking your neck out,' or, `You guys are really brave.'

"After the story that we go through last year with our RPI being 43rd and we don't get in (to the NCAA Tournament), being in a league where most would think we'd get seven teams in and we get five,
and a team that finishes seventh (in another league) gets in ahead of a team that finished fifth, there's some funny politicking going on there."

"Our schedule will probably stack up in the Top 20 schedules in the country. We plan on playing good and winning some, and the RPI should take care of itself."

Beam us up, Scottie
Cowboys hope to rally behind Baker and head to the College World Series

By Katy Jones

Scott Baker said he came to Oklahoma State because he felt he could get done what he needed to do here.
And Baker, who had a 4.05 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 53.1 innings pitched last season, has been getting things done since his arrival.

"When a player brings attention to the program, it's because he's had success," said coach Tom Holliday.

"Around the country right now Scott Baker is seen as one of the elite. Now, an elite, whether they like it or not, they now become a figure. It's gonna start with him as a lead-off guy and he's gonna have to go out and pitch against other No. 1s, and if he can go out and beat other people's No. 1s, we've got a great, great advantage because our No. 2 and 3s are really, really powerful guys."

Baker spent a part of his summer in Cape Cod gaining recognition as a Top 10 pitcher and Top 25 prospect nationally.

"Can a guy like Baker pitch you to the College World Series? The answer to that is certainly yes," Holliday said. "He's up there in the highest level that college baseball can place a guy. He's on the map."

Baker said he's excited about the coming season, and believes it will be the best one he's been a part of.

"We got exactly what we needed with our schedule and incoming class this year," Baker said. "We've really meshed and gelled as a team."

The Shreveport, La., native was named to the Louisville Slugger Freshmen All-American team by Collegiate Baseball in 2001 and went 6-2 before missing the final six weeks of the season with a sore arm.

"You don't want to overplay him and put him on the cover of your book and build him up as a sophomore, but he's kind of earned that," Holliday said.

"We're a program that people don,t forget about very easily. The question is can he handle all that? There's a lot of challenges that come with being in the eye of the storm. But he is the guy that can handle it."
Holliday faces tough schedule, recruiting woes

Inside Cowboy Baseball: What are you looking forward to with this difficult 2003 schedule?

Coach Tom Holliday: That first five game stretch, we have a chance to play four really good RPIs, and then Princeton is the only one that carries a bad RPI. And they're predicted this year to win the Ivy League, so league champions will help you later on. And then, bingo, you're home and you're playing Texas, the defending national champions. If you're gonna have a good RPI around here, you're gonna travel, so it becomes more expensive than you'd like, but we pick up a pretty good guarantee when we go play because people want to see Oklahoma State play.
It's not as expensive as it sounds, because we are bringing in money from playing in opposing club's stadiums.

ICB: Are good RPI teams from last year necessarily the same kind of teams
this year?

TH: The one element that everyone is really angry about in college baseball right now you can look at your schedule and say, Boy this is a dynamite schedule because Wake Forest ended up eighth, North Carolina was 23rd, Arizona State was 18th, well we don't know from one year to the next if
teams are gonna stay at this level so you try to schedule up where you think you're scheduling up.

Then, these guys have a bad year and go .500. Trying to ever schedule an RPI high enough to automatically qualify you is virtually impossible, there's just no way to say in college baseball
who the Top 10 will end up being.

Normally when a team's great the year before they lose a bunch of guys because that's why they're great, and then they drop down a little bit.

ICB: How difficult is it to recruit and be in-season at the same time, since baseball is one of the only sports with more than one recruiting season?

TH: We're a sport that has two signing periods. We're a sport that's been inundated with all-star games, what they refer to as showcases. We've gone from being able to invite kids to campus to participate in camps to now we've got to go to showcases to see kids play against 95 other kids because they won't come to your camps. Agents come now and realize that they're taking kids away from you but they don't care, because the only product that matters is the kid. If you've got 100 high school kids together in Long Beach, if there's 100 of the top high school prospects in the country together, you've got to go.

When the summer's over there's seven or eight of these showcases. In the fall you have to go see some of the same junior college all-star games, so we're out trying to get our team ready for the upcoming season, and watching these high school and junior college guys. Frankly, the participation rule for how many days we're allowed to participate and how many days we have,
you have to coach your ball club hard for the three or four weeks that you choose, it's ongoing. When one recruiting period ends in November, you have from November to January to get your personal motivation up for the season coming, and there's a lot of kids going to camps that you need to go see play, and it just never stops. Then another period opens up in April, you're recruiting and playing at the same time. As college baseball coaches as a group, we have some items on the agenda for our convention to try to unify our recruiting calendar.

We don't have a recruiting calendar like basketball or baseball, and I think both those sports are smart for having adopted one, because you can build some dead periods in there where you can actually relax a little bit, and I think the beauty of what the NCAA's done, is they've built the nine
month calendar around the student athlete. And that's good with the restricted number of days and the restricted number of hours that we're allowed to coach these guys, I think it makes us organize practice better and spend more quality time with our guys instead of having them standing around. There's a good and bad side to everything. But fact is, there needs to be a period for college baseball coaches to relax. There's a lot of younger coaches in college baseball, getting burned out and just going into pro ball. It's a different lifestyle and we're trying to keep some of these good young guys in college baseball coming, and there's a lot of kids going to camps that you need to go see play, and it just never stops. Then another period opens up in April, you're recruiting and playing at the same time. As college baseball coaches as a group, we have some items on the
agenda for our convention to try to unify our recruiting calendar.

Cowboy Beat
By Jimmy Hartley

Free Agents: Where former Cowboy standout and current Free Agent Robin Ventura will be playing next year is up in the air. The Yankees do not think that young phenom Drew Henson is ready to take over third base yet. New York will likely offer Ventura a one year deal in the area of $6 million. If
Ventura does not re-sign with the Yankees, other playing posibilities for 2003 could be with the Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets or San Franciso Giants........Former Oklahoma State pitchers Dave Mlicki and Dave Maurer are also Free Agents this off-season .... Mlicki went 4-10 for the Houston Astros this past season and Maurer posted a 0-1 mark with the Cleveland Indians.......Record Setters: It is believed that the 13 Cowboys that signed a pro contract off the 2002 squad could be a record.......Cape Cod: Current Cowboy Scott Baker was named to the Cape Cod League All-Star team this past summer while playing with the Orleans
Cardinals.......Joe Weaver and Shane Hawk joined Baker in the Cape this summer. Weaver played alongside Baker with the Orleans Cardinals while Hawk played for the Hyannis Mets.......Major League Bloodline: Cowboy junior first baseman John Urick is the grandson of Hall of Famer Whitey
Herzog.......Wedding Bells are in the Air: Senior Mike Miller was married to Carissa Crosby on Sept. 27 in Tulsa.......Former Cowboy catcher Matt Oakes was married to Amanda Shane on Oct. 26 in Buffalo.......Cowboy assistant coach Josh Holliday will be married to Jenny Moore on Dec. 21 in Stillwater.

Cowboy Baseball Club golf tournament a success

The goal of this year's golf tournament fundraiser at the Stillwater Country Club was to raise money to add to the promotion budget, and was a huge success.
The golf outing featured the return of over 20 former Cowboys from many different teams. The No. 1 feature was hole No. 9, in which guests challenged the coach for closest to the pin. Results were: coach 11, golfers 14. Those that won walked away with their choice of a new driver or putter.
The long drive of the day went to former Cowboy, Tiger, Ranger, and A's slugger Mickey Tettleton. Mick edged the competition by an estimated 10 yards with the winning drive going an estimated 325 yards with no bounce or roll.
All in all the food was great, the Stillwater Country Club was great, the weather was average at best and the mood was outstanding.
The group of Richard Kunze, Carlos Gautreaux, Pat Hope and Jim Bolding will have to defend their crown next year as soon as the date is set.

Cowboy Baseball would like to thank the following sponsors for allowing the golf tournament to be possible:
Complete Environmental Products ^~ Chad Clay
Phoenix Coal Sales ^~ Bob Hartley
Chris' University Spirit
Dr. Sean Kelly
BancFirst
International Tours
Richard & Lawana Kunze
Wheeler Insurance
Causley Productions
S&S Farm Feed & Seed of Shawnee
Mark Patton
Chandler IGA ^~ Keith Kinnamon
Dennis Wing
Carl & Ginger Harris
Stillwater National Bank
NBK MetalTech
Mrs. Luschen
Don and Polly Crawley
Johnson's of Stillwater
Jot & Renee Hartley

Special Thanks to:
Albertsons
Wal-Mart
Nevada Bob's

2003 Cowboy Baseball Club golf tournament participants:

Dave Pitts
Kevin Fowler
Jim Vanna
Ryan Folmar

Pat Hope
Jim Bolding
Richard Kunze
Carlos Gautreaux

Barry Smith
Mark Smith
Mike Blalock
Art Dean

Steve Scholnik
Terry Johnson
Bryan Faith
Dave Brasfield
Billy Gasparino
Tim Kunze
Kyle Waters
Shane Sturgeon

Jerry Carpenter
Tony Wilkinson
Dave Martin
John Hronopolis

Kirk Dietrich
Jason Bell
Scott Jones
Kurt Carter

Rob Watson
Neb Brown
Justin Meccage
Dr. Cooper
David Terry
Monty Fariss
Bob Anthony
Jay McCullough

Dave Terrill
Danny Perez
Todd Shelton
Robbie Wine

Jeff Bronkey
Bob Gaiko
Molly Cheatham
Nikki Hayes

Don Booher
Jim Christopher
Joe Buck
Chuck Nicholson

Tim Moore
Keith Kinnamon
Pat Gilmore
Josh Holliday

Kent Wheeler
Darren Wheeler
Dino Carrier
Jaime Wood

Jot Hartley
Travis Hartley
Jimmy Hartley
Mitch Simons
Jordan Formby

Scott Roach
Mickey Tettleton
Trent Marr
Mike Lewis

For more information about the newsletter or the Cowboy Baseball Club please call Jimmy Hartley in the Cowboy baseball office at (405) 744-5849. You can also email him at jhart_osu23@hotmail.com.

Oklahoma State University Athletics

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