Riscen’s No-Hitter for Texas A&M; Eases Misgivings of a Lost Season

If Fred Riscen had stopped to think about things, he probably would have recognized that all the signs were there.

But as the left-hander from Granada Hills warmed up in the Texas A&M; bullpen Saturday, his thoughts were focused on his pitches and his inability to fully control them. The sharpness Riscen felt he had recovered after battling through early season arm trouble was absent.

He prepared to start the first game of a Southwestern Conference doubleheader against Rice knowing that his fastball wasn’t fast and his breaking pitches weren’t breaking. It didn’t matter. The Rice hitters didn’t hit.

“I should have realized,” Riscen said, “whenever I don’t throw good in the pen, I do pretty well in the game.”

Riscen pitched a four-strikeout, one-walk no-hitter that helped the fifth-ranked Aggies to a 5-0 win and an eventual sweep heading into this weekend’s conference showdown with Texas.

“Sometimes things fall into place and sometimes they don’t,” said Riscen, who pitched his last no-hitter in the first round of the 1984 City Section 4-A Division playoffs against Canoga Park when he was a senior at Granada Hills High. “Saturday, they just happened to fall my way.”

The timing could not have been better for the 5-foot-11, 185-pound Riscen, who arrived at the College Station campus with high expectations after he went 10-3 last season at College of the Canyons and helped the San Fernando Valley Dodgers reach the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, Kan., last summer.

Toward the end of fall workouts, however, Riscen began to experience recurring stiffness in his throwing arm and was forced to take a month off. After Christmas, he visited the Houston Astros’ team doctor who diagnosed tendinitis and gave him a cortisone shot to reduce the inflammation and a rehabilitation program to strengthen the arm.

The season was about to begin when Riscen received more bad news.

Riscen had attended Cal State Northridge in 1984-85 and participated in fall scrimmages, but because he did not make an appearance during the regular season he assumed he was credited with a redshirt year. He pitched at Pierce College in 1985-86, transferred to Canyons last season and was looking forward to possibly spending two years at Texas A&M.;

A few weeks before the Aggies’ opener, Riscen received word from the NCAA that his time spent at Northridge did indeed count against him and that he had just one year of eligibility remaining. The ruling was particularly troubling because Riscen, who was drafted three times during his junior college career, seemingly had lost the bargaining leverage enjoyed by juniors who are drafted at the four-year level.

Riscen tries not to let the dilemma affect his performance. “I’m going to petition the NCAA at the end of the season,” he said. “I’m really not concerned with it right now.”

Riscen made his first start of the season March 28 at home against top-ranked Oklahoma State before a crowd of 5,300 and a national television audience on ESPN. Working with a 40-pitch limit, Riscen went four innings and gave up two runs as the Aggies lost, 5-4, in 10 innings.

Riscen earned his first win by pitching five shutout innings against Baylor and he is now 2-0 with a 1.06 earned run average in 17 innings for the Aggies (41-8, 11-1 in conference play). “I love it down here,” Riscen said. “The complex is better than anything I’ve seen back home and they treat us great.

“I don’t have any more pain in my arm and I’m beginning to feel strong again. I missed half the season, but I’m looking forward to finishing strong and helping us win the conference. This is where all the marbles are on the table.”