All is quiet surrounding Kansas baseball’s Ryan Baty now.
Soon, the tape recorders will be humming. The flashbulbs will be popping. His locker will be swarmed, video cameras, annoying reporters, microphones all shoved in his face.
Women will faint every time he smiles. Children will weep when their lucky baseball is autographed. Groupies will swarm him at bars and leave feeling a “special connection” that is really just in their shallow heads.
If he keeps hitting the crap out of the baseball like he is now, Ryan Baty could be a superstar down the road — but no one at Kansas would care.
If Baty’s in it for the glory, he’s at the wrong school — or in the wrong sport.
The fair-weathered Kansas fans don’t pay much attention to anything but men’s basketball around here. The sad thing is, they’re missing out on some good athletes. They’re all talented, and they’re all Jayhawks. Ryan Baty is just one of them.
Two weeks ago, Baty, a junior outfielder, was beyond sensational. In a six-game series at Hawaii-Hilo, Baty hit .619, had 13 hits, crushed two homers, three doubles and had nine RBIs. He reached base 17 of the 25 times he came to the plate.
The achievements go on. He made zero errors. He never struck out. He walked four times. At one point, he had hits in seven straight at-bats. He scored seven runs.
All those stats were team-bests.
“In my 25 years of coaching, that’s as good a weekend as I’ve seen a player play,” coach Ritch Price said. “He was special.”
Price has spent most of his coaching years in California, a state stocked with the most talented amateur athletes in the United States. His comment comes with a lot of merit.
The nation took notice of Baty last week. The National Collegiate Baseball Writer’s Association gave him one of the most prestigious honors. Baty was named the NCAA National Hitter of the Week for the week ending Feb. 2. No one at KU seemed to care.
Baty could put up some monster numbers this year. It’s early, but he is on pace to hit .536, blast 16 homers and drive in 72 runs. In the rigors of a 63-game schedule, he likely won’t, but the projections do show how remarkably he’s started this season.
His size, speed and talent are sure to land him a nice spot in this summer’s Major League Baseball draft. The Kansas baseball team is talented, and with a fiery new coach at the helm, it could be on its way to its best season in years.
But will anyone care?
Last week, Ryan Baty should’ve been the biggest story in Kansas athletics. He wasn’t. Instead, it was Keith Langford’s mysterious Band-Aid on his forehead, Wayne Simien’s screwed-up shoulder, coach Roy Williams bashing the Internet and a bunch of idiots believing it’s guilty until proven innocent regarding Missouri guard Ricky Clemons.
The talent pool in college baseball is loaded. There are potential Major League All-Stars and, possibly, future Major League Hall-of-Famers in the college game today.
Ryan Baty was better than all of them. But since he doesn’t play basketball, nobody at Kansas cared.
What a shame.