“And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,” reads a line in Thayer’s poem “Casey at Bat,” which first appeared in The San Francisco Examiner in 1888 -six years before Guilford College’s first baseball team had an at bat. Come Feb. 6, the current incarnation of that same team will hold the ball and let it go as they enter their 111th season.
The Quakers hope to improve from last season, which saw a 20-19 record, leaving them in eighth place out of ten teams in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC). They finished 6-12 in conference play.
Despite the non-stellar season, last year’s team did have the sixth-highest number of at-bats, the fourth-highest team batting-average, and the third highest number of hits since Guilford College began keeping team record books.
Of the returning players, 18 are letter winners and seven are starters. Returning standouts include senior team co-captain Adam Comstock, junior co-captain Rob Bittner, who had seven home runs last year and 45 runs batted-in (RBIs), as well as senior co-captain Josh Miller.
Miller was the winner of Guilford’s Most Valuable Player award for 2004, with two home runs, 36 RBIs, and a .414 batting average–the team’s highest.
Miller was named to the North Carolina Collegiate Sports Information Association (NCCSIA) College Division All-State Baseball Team, along with now graduated teammate A.J. McCauley.
“Bittner and Miller had huge years last year,” said head coach Gene Baker. “I don’t know if it’s fair to expect the same numbers from them this year. But they can still have even more of an impact as far as run-scoring ability.”
The loss of McCauley as a player may prove a major challenge for the team. Last year, McCauley’s batting average was .362, and over the course of his time at Guilford, McCauley joined the ranks of Guilford legend and current major league standout Tony Womack, appearing several times in the team record book with the career high in stolen bases (85 bases in 154 games), hits (243), and overall batting average (.380).
“We haven’t really lost AJ,” said Baker. “He’s helping coach a little bit.”
This is Baker’s seventh year with the Quakers. He has a 155-132 record here, and an overall record of 354-488. Baker is in his seventeenth season coaching college baseball.
The team’s starting lineup is young compared to last year’s.
“There’s only one first-year, and only one senior (starting),” said Baker. “There are a lot of sophomores and juniors. This year and next year, we’re really going to play with the same team.”
There is a strong sense of solidarity among this year’s squad which may prove to be a catalyst for their success.
“I love the camaraderie with my teammates,” said first-year pitcher Scottie Wilcox. “We hang out together, we eat together, and we practice together. A lot of us live together.”
“It works because you have to know each other on and off the field to play well together,” Wilcox said.
“Our greatest strengths are pitching depth and hitting depth,” said Baker. “I don’t know that we can identify a particular guy who is our number-one pitcher, but we’ve got the luxury of six or seven or eight guys who can all go out there and get people out any day.”
“I think we have a really good pitching crew and some really deep hitters,” said Wilcox. “We look good.”
The first baseball game of the season is Feb. 6, at Methodist College at 2 p.m. The first home game will be Feb. 8, on McBane field, against Southern Virginia College, also at 2 p.m. The team’s first conference game is at Eastern Mennonite College on Feb. 27.
The Quakers are confident that a strong start will send them in the right direction towards a successful season.
“We do look really good this year,” said sophomore catcher Phil Drew. “This year’s team is a lot younger than last year – we have a lot of sophomores and juniors starting. But everyone knows everyone else’s strengths and weaknesses. We play together real well.