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m Spotlight
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Russ Adams might
BE THE NEXT BIG THING FOR THE
North Carolina baseball team,
IF HE ISN'T ALREADY.
He enters this season a first
team preseason All-
American, is ranked the
fourth-best college prospect
in the country by Baseball
America and has an excellent
chance to be taken with one of the first 10 picks
of June’s Major League Baseball draft.
Not that he’d tell you any of that.
If you didn’t notice Adams in his sophomore
season, you’re absolved. The
junior from Laurinburg was the
first UNC second baseman to be
named All-ACC since 1979 and
was the team’s most valuable play-
er. But he did it quietly, far too focused to be
flashy.
A breakout season in the Cape Cod Baseball
League, America’s best amateur summer cir
cuit, makes him a little harder to ignore.
“The interesting thing about Russ to me was
that nobody really knew about him,” said Don
Norris, Adams’ coach last summer on the
Orleans (Mass.) Cardinals. “A lot of times we
have to compete for guys up there. It’s almost
like a whole recruiting process.
“No one seemed really interested in him,
and I needed a second baseman, so I said,
‘Sure, why not?’ As soon as he showed up I was
like, ‘Well this kid’s definitely better than I
thought.’”
Despite its Hollywood first act, Adams’ sum
mer of coastal baseball was hardly one of chas
ing blondes and downing brews with Freddie
Prinze Jr. and the gangly guy from "Scream.”
On a typical day, Adams started the morning
with work at a youth baseball clinic in Orleans.
In the afternoon, Adams would either lift
weights or take early batting practice. Then
came more batting practice, typically followed
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Early on, the pitching, which faltered so often in
2001, has been solid. Autrey allowed two runs and
struck out seven in 4 2/3 innings Friday against
Seton Hall, and Bakker and Moore each allowed a
run in a combined 10 1/3 innings of work.
“Coming into the season, our pitching was the
question mark,” Farrell said. “Our pitchers made a
great statement last weekend.”
Should that continue, the Tar Heels could find
themselves back toward the top of a stacked ACC, a
league that boasts national contenders like Florida
State, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest.
If not, visions of the recent past could creep back
into the team’s near future.
“If you don’t compete on a weekend in the
league,” Fox said, “you’ll get hammered.”
Spring Sports 2002
by a night game.
Tedious as it might have been, the batting
practice was crucial, as hitters in the Cape
League face the same top-notch competition
they have faced all spring, with a kicker.
Instead of aluminum bats, hitters use wooden
ones, complete with smaller sweet spots.
“A lot of people straggle at first,” said UNC
center fielder Adam Greenberg, who played
for the league’s Chatham A’s last summer.
“Everyone’s frying to bunt, play
small ball.”
Adams managed to avoid the
early straggles. Part of it was the
experience he had using the hard-
By Jamie Agin
Assistant Sports Editor
wood in past competition, including the
Coastal Plain League in the summer of 2000.
The other part was pure skill.
“He’s got good hand-eye coordination,”
Norris said. “A lot of it up there is putting the
ball in play.
“And when you’ve got speed, like he does,
you can take advantage. He would bunt, but
I’m not going to say he was primarily a bunter.
I mean, he can hit.”
Adams finished the season second in the
league in hits, second in runs scored, first in
walks and tied for the league lead in steals.
Those numbers earned him a trip to the Cape’s
All-Star game, where Adams smacked a three
run homer to lead the East to a 10-1 win against
the West and took home MVP honors.
"Being a part of the All-Star game was just
a great experience for me,” Adams said.
“There were three, four thousand people at the
game. Just a great atmosphere, the top players
in the country, top players in the league. Just an
all-around fun experience and something I’ll
always remember.”
After the season, Adams was honored with
the Robert A. McNeece Outstanding Pro
Prospect Award. The honor might be the most
prestigious in the league, even more so than the
Pat Sorenti Award for league MVP, won by
Georgia Tech outfielder Matt Murton of the
league-champion Wareham Gatemen.
“In a lot of arftis, most outstanding prospect
is a higher achievement than MVP,” Norris
said. “The MVP is usually going to go to one of
the teams that earned first place. In his situa
tion, if our team was in first place, (Adams) may
have won the MVP.”
The league higher-ups weren’t the only ones
struck by Adams’ talent. Proof lies within the
Aug. 6 edition of “Diamond Notes,” the stream
of-consciousness reflections of ESPN analyst
Peter Gammons, perhaps the nation’s most
respected baseball mind:
“Most athletic infielder in the league in years,
4.1 runner, disciplined at the plate, soft hands,
speed and has shown power potential. There
are a lot of scouts who think he’s the best
prospect, period.”
While Adams has to settle for being the No.
4 college prospect and llth-ranked talent over
all (including high school players) in the current
issue of Baseball America, he poetically
summed up his off-season leap.
“That’s how you want to spend your sum
mers.”
But the worst thing about summers? They
end. And when Adams returned to UNC in the
fall, one had to wonder: With his success, would
Adams cram an inflated ego in his suitcase as a
souvenir from the Bay State?
The answer to this question has been unani
mous - no.
“He still comes out here ever)’ day, the same
way he always has, like nothing’s changed, real
ly,” said UNC teammate Chad Prosser, who
shares the infield with Adams.
But doesn’t the hype intrude occasionally in
the locker room or sneak into casual, off-the
diamond conversations?
“No. Not really.”
Tar Heel pitcher Scott Autrey, who also
played for the Cardinals over the summer and
lived with the same host family as Adams, said
his teammate is unfazed by the accolades.
“He has to know, and I know he knows,”
Autrey said. “But I don’t think he dwells on it
by any means. It’s an honor, but after that it’s
left behind.”
Said UNC coach Mike Fox: “He under
stands the pitfalls of getting caught up too much
in the hype. He’s as mentally prepared a play
er that I’ve probably ever coached. And I think
that’s why the scouts really like him.”
Scouts may be enamored with Adams, but
for the time being, they’ll have to wait to see
him play. Adams suffered a hairline fracture to
his left thumb when he was hit by a pitch in last
Friday, February 22, 2002
Friday’s season-opening win against Seton Hall.
The injury forced him to the designated hit
ter position Saturday, and he was kept out of
the game Sunday for precautionary measures.
But if what Adams said after Sunday’s game
was any indication, he won’t be out of the line
up for very long.
There’s too much work to be done.
“For the most part, every part of my game
needs improvement, just like every body else
that plays this game needs improvement in
every area,” he said. “The game can’t be per
fected.”
Maybe not, but the consensus is that Adams
has a good start. Gammons called his athleti
cism “Alomaresque.” That versatility will be
highlighted more this season, as Fox said he
plans to play Adams more frequendy at short
stop as opposed to second base.
Norris agreed that Adams is one of the most
athletic players he’s ever seen. The only tool
Adams doesn’t have, Norris said, is power at the
plate.
“Power is going to be the thing in his career
that’s going to lack, but that doesn’t matter with
this type of player,” Norris said when asked to
compare Adams to current all-star infielders.
“He’s got skills already that guys like Bret
Boone and Jeff Kent don’t have. He’ll just have
to use what he does more.”
In a few months, Adams will almost certain
ly follow the path of Kent, Jeff Bagwell, Lance
Berkman, Nomar Garciaparra, Todd Helton
and hundreds of other ballplayers from the
Cape League to the pros.
Almost equally as certain is that he will take
the event in stride, a stepping stone to a greater
goal of a spot in a Major League lineup.
Of course, this prompts a question: In the
face of all the hype, how can someone be so
businesslike? When posed the question, for
once Adams couldn’t keep a straight face.
“I try not to get too excited when things are
going good, and I try not to get too down when
things are going bad,” he said, chuckling. “The
game has its ups and downs.”
Said Greenberg: “That’s Russ. What you see
is what you get. He’s very straight to the point.
He’s very business-oriented as far as, ‘l’m com
ing out here to do a job and have fun.’
“There’s nothing extravagant that you
wouldn't know or you could dig up. If there is,
1 don’t have it, and we spend a lot of time
together.”
In the politics-as-usual world of college
sports, where a Heisman Trophy candidate can
shrug off the importance of the award after a
10-story-tall, $250,000 banner of his likeness
was hung in Times Square, it has become
increasingly hard to take anyone at face value.
But for Russ Adams, just this once, you make
an exception.
DTH BRIAN CASSELLA
7
UNC's
baseball
team
struggled
in 2001
but hopes
to use the
experience
it gained
to return
to the top
of the ACC
this year.