Titans’ Silva Doesn’t Let One Bad Pitch Bother Him

Ted Silva had his Mitch Williams moment nearly a year ago. Semifinal round of the 1994 College World Series, 2-2 tie in the top of the 12th inning, 2-0 pitch to Georgia Tech shortstop Nomar Garciaparra.

“A 2-0 fastball, right down the middle,� Silva remembers, as if he could ever forget.

“He was sitting dead fastball. He was pretty much expecting a 2-0 fastball.�

Silva blinks and he shrugs.

“He didn’t get cheated.�

Garciaparra hit the pitch in Omaha, but local legend has the baseball being recovered in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Cal State Fullerton’s baseball season went along for the ride. Out of town, out of the tournament.

And Silva?

Athletic careers can be ravaged by pitches like that. Silva was just a sophomore then, two months shy of his 20th birthday. Silva could have been devastated. He could have dropped his glove, walked off the mound and never returned. He could have quit right then and there, maybe go back to his first love, basketball. Fullerton could have used the help at point guard.

Or, he could go back to the NCAA playoffs with a 14-1 record, a 2.51 earned-run average, six saves and the first nine-inning no-hitter in the history of the school.

That has to be the stat of this collegiate baseball season: Since giving up the pitch that ended Fullerton’s 1994 World Series--the Rosensplat at Rosenblatt--Silva has pitched in 20 Titan victories and one defeat.

And in that one defeat, Fullerton committed five errors.

Silva, who starts for the Titans in their regional opener against Northeast Louisiana Thursday, has been virtually perfect since the gopher in Omaha. Wallow in the defeat? If anything, Silva has seemed to draw strength from it.

“Basically, I put it behind me,� Silva says. “I never think about it much, unless someone on the team is ragging me or someone like you [he gestures to a reporter] asks me about it.

“Just because I give up a home run doesn’t mean anything. He did what he had to do. What if he didn’t hit it out? We wouldn’t be sitting here talking about him now, that’s all.

“The way I looked at it, I thought it was something I could use to my advantage later on.�

Advantage, Silva, advantage, Fullerton. Where would the Titans be without Silva this season? Nowhere near Baton Rouge and even farther from the top slot in the current collegiate baseball rankings. Silva has been the iron man on this pitching staff and then some. Platinum might be a more accurate classification.

A typical weekend for Silva this year has gone something like this:

Friday: Enter the game in the eighth or ninth inning, close out the victory, log another save.

Saturday: Brief respite.

Sunday: Start the series finale, pitch into the seventh inning or beyond, get another victory.

He relieves, then he starts.

He starts, then he relieves.

“I’ve never had a pitcher who does what Ted does,� Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido says. “He goes one or two innings Friday and he comes back on Sunday.

“It’s unusual, but we were looking for a way to fill up a high number of innings that . . .�

Garrido searches for the proper words.

“That . . . were left vacant.�

One could put it that way, since not one of the four starting pitchers who took Garrido to Omaha in 1994 returned in 1995. Dan Ricabal (12-1 last season), Mike Parisi (11-4) and Chad Rolish (7-4) were drafted and signed by big-league teams. Matt Wagner, the Big West Conference pitcher of the year as a junior, was declared ineligible by the NCAA and transferred to Lewis & Clark, an NAIA school.

“Everybody was just kind of gone ,� Silva says, recalling a rather lonely first day of workouts. “You just sit back and you say, ‘Oh no!’ and then it’s, ‘OK, who’s left? Let’s see what we’ve got.’ �

Well, there was Silva.

And, well, there was Silva.

“It was up to the coaches to find a way to pitch me as much as they could,� Silva says. “Get every opportunity I could. I think it’s worked out pretty profitably.�

One hundred and twenty nine innings later, Fullerton is No. 1 in the nation, Silva is the Big West’s pitcher of the year and the right arm remains attached to the right shoulder. Scouts seem somewhat surprised by this. Silva is no brute--he’s listed generously in the Fullerton media guide as 6-1, 170 pounds--and relies more on guile and a meandering slider than speed gun-popping heat. Consequently, his name does not appear high on most pre-June draft charts.

Consequently, Silva is not high on those who compile the pre-June draft charts.

“The draft is sort of a joke,� he says. “Who knows what they want? They just see you pitch and if they like you, they like you. If they don’t, they don’t.

“They just look at a pitcher’s physical-ness. Height, weight and how hard you throw. But they don’t look inside you. They don’t know who you are.�

Silva would like to give the scouts another look-see in Omaha. Erase any lingering bad first impressions.

“That home run,� Silva says, “is what I’ll be remembered for in that College World Series.�

The good thing about the College World Series, though: Every year, there’s another one. And so Silva is in Louisiana today, trying to pitch his way north next week.

If he does get there, expect him to leave the fat 2-0 fastball behind.