(#75)
I got a call back in the late summer of 1993. It was from a young man from California and he said he was interested in playing baseball at Hinds. His name was Eric Bock.
He was moving to Mississippi to the Florence area where his wife’s father was the president of Wesley Biblical Seminary.
He said he was about 6’4″ and weighed about 195 pounds and threw the baseball at about 89-90 mph. I rolled my eyes, as always.
If I had a dollar for every time someone has called over the years and to me they were a certain height, a certain weight and could throw the baseball 90 mph.
They usually ended up being 5’5″, 255 and with a velocity of maybe 75 mph, depending on which way the wind was blowing.
This time, since he was already in the area, I told him to meet me at Hinds and I’d have him throw a bullpen.
He was 6’4″, about 195 pounds and topped out at about 89-90 mph, and had a nice fluid pitching motion and effortless release as a bonus.
I signed him on the spot before he called another JUCO.
In his one season at Hinds, he finished 4-1 with a 2.50 ERA. He was third in the rotation behind Dave Townsend, a future NCAA Division II Player and Pitcher of the year (1996) at DSU and a future Florida Marlin signee and Chad Bradford, who would pitch for 6 Major League teams in 12 seasons after signing with the Chicago White Sox in 1996. Pretty good company. Pretty good pitching staff. Pretty good recruiting. And they all logged about 7-9 innings every time they pitched.
In post-season play, Bock pitched a 5-hitter against Chattahoochee Valley, AL. in the deciding game of the best-of-three series in the District E Playoffs at the University of West Alabama in Livingston, which the Eagles won, 11-1 to send Hinds to the 1994 Division II World Series in Millington, Tennessee.
Hinds was the first Mississippi team to play in the JUCO World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado in 1989 (before divisional play began in 1993) and now the first Mississippi team to play in the Division II World Series.
My son Josh became the current pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Hinds. I’ve told him the Bock story and others like it many times over the years and assured him that recruiting is easy.
If you don’t call them, they’ll call you.
And everybody who calls throws 90 mph. 🙂
Call the Coach! 601-941.1857 nuway.ms
Rick Clarke's Diary of a Mad Baseball Coach 