UC Irvine Notebook / Elliott Teaford : He’s Unlikely Big Man in Anteaters’ Lineup

OK, enough with the short jokes already.

Albert Rodriguez, UC Irvine’s 5-foot-9 sophomore, uh, shortstop, has heard enough of them.

There was the time he injured his shoulder when he was pinned while wrestling with his nephew. And get this, his nephew is 5 years old.

His teammates won’t let him forget that one. Nor will they stop reminding Rodriguez, whom they’ve dubbed “Big Guy,” that he’s the smallest No. 3 hitter in the country.

That might be true, but it’s an insignificant distinction to Rodriguez. Size be darned, Rodriguez is a tower of power for Irvine. His .358 batting average and 33 runs batted in lead the team.

“He’s also probably the only No. 3 hitter without a home run,” Irvine Coach Mike Gerakos joked.

He also is, according to Gerakos, the Anteaters’ most consistent player, a quiet leader whose size makes him the object of friendly kidding and whose play is impressive nevertheless.

Gerakos never had any doubts about Rodriguez and that’s why he recruited him from Westminster High School.

His size didn’t stop Rodriguez from batting .459 and making two All-Southern Section teams. Then he was 5-8 and 145 pounds.

“I knew he could play without a doubt,” Gerakos said. “He’s just gotten better and better.”

Rodriguez batted .274 with 26 RBIs as a freshman, stepping into the starting shortstop position. He struck out just 12 times in 253 plate appearances. Not bad for a freshman, but not as good as Rodriguez had hoped.

His disappointment drove him all the way to Kansas. In this case a summer league team based in Liberal, Kan. Rodriguez spent the summer living with a local family and playing baseball almost every day.

He returned to Irvine with a wealth of confidence and, as Gerakos discovered, a noticeable Midwestern drawl.

“It was just a matter of playing more and seeing more college pitchers,” Rodriguez said. “It was a confidence builder. I haven’t changed anything from high school.”

Playing in the summer league with and against players from nationally ranked schools such as Miami, Texas and Texas A&M; helped. Rodriguez watched the others and learned all he could.

“It was my chance to go out and see the world,” Rodriguez said.

For the most part, he liked what he saw.

“I don’t get a lot of attention,” he said. “I guess it’s because of my size. People see this little guy come up as the No. 3 hitter and they probably start wondering a little bit.”

For the most part, shortstops aren’t very big, but as Rodriguez said, “I’m just too small.”

Still, his small stature hasn’t detracted from Rodriguez’s performance on the field.

“Rather than being one of our support players, he’s been one of the leaders,” Gerakos said.

Last week’s vote against a proposal to further study funding a football team at Irvine effectively ended one man’s two-year effort to get a team started.

Jim Breslo, a senior majoring in political science and a former defensive end at Claremont High, had gone to great lengths to convince the student body, the athletic department and anyone else who would listen that Irvine could--and should--have a National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division III football program.

“I’d given up studying this quarter,” he said.

But with his proposal defeated in the student elections last week, Breslo’s work appears to have fallen on deaf ears. It was Breslo’s third try at getting Irvine students to vote on such a proposal. Two other attempts failed before getting to the ballot.

Breslo, who is graduating this spring and hopes to attend law school soon, said Tuesday he is giving up his battle.

“We had six guys working on the project the last few months, but three of us had been working longer,” Breslo said. “One of the guys is transferring to Illinois, where they have a very good football team.”

Breslo said he was disappointed in the results of the proposal, essentially an opinion poll asking whether Irvine students favored having a football team at the school.

The students rejected the proposal, 1,557 to 1,216. According to Breslo, confusion in the weeks leading up the election over how much students would be assessed to cover the costs of the program led to the defeat.

He said he had conducted a poll early in the school year. Of the 200 students he contacted, Breslo said 88% were in favor. He said 70% said they would be willing to pay to start the program.

Breslo said he had a budget of $150 to run his campaign and the help of the other five students.

“I put two years into it,” he said. “I’m afraid all my work is going to amount to nothing.”

Signing: Cherie Birtwistle, a 6-4 center from Victoria, Canada, has signed a letter of intent to play for the women’s basketball team next season.

Birtwistle averaged 33 points and 15 rebounds a game for Stelly’s School in Victoria. She is the first foreign recruit by the Irvine women’s team.

“This is a gargantuan match,” men’s tennis Coach Greg Patton said of the Anteaters’ showdown with UCLA Saturday.

“(It’s) probably the biggest college dual match in the nation this year. It is not just any dual match, this is for the stakes--to be No. 1 in the country before NCAAs.”

Fourth-ranked Irvine plays host to top-ranked UCLA Saturday at 1 p.m. in the Anteaters’ final match before the NCAA championships May 19-27 at Athens, Ga.

Irvine won its third consecutive Big West Conference championship at Ojai last weekend.

The men’s and women’s track and field teams are taking this weekend off from competition to gear up for next week’s Big West Conference championships at Cerritos College. Marc Goulet’s fast 1,500-meter race and a 17-foot pole vault by Jeff Williams highlighted Sunday’s Irvine Invitational. Goulet’s time was 3 minutes 46.25 seconds. He missed the NCAA qualifying standard by four seconds. Treg Scott of the Arizona State Track Club won in 3:44.18, breaking the track record of 3:44.6 set in 1976 by former Irvine star Steve Scott.