A REAL REVIVAL : Croghan Returns With a Vengeance--and a Split-Finger Fastball--to Lead 49ers

Andy Croghan looks back over his brief baseball career and wonders . . . how?

How does a guy who decided he no longer wanted to play baseball when he was a freshman in high school get to pitch in the College World Series?

How does a guy who had no scholarship offers a year ago get to pitch in college in the first place?

How does a guy who has never won a postseason game in his life win two of the most important games in Cal State Long Beach baseball history?

How, indeed.

“Hey, I still can’t believe all of this,” said Croghan, a graduate of Servite High School. “This season has gone by so fast, I really haven’t had time to think about what’s happened.”

What has happened falls into the near-miracle category. Long Beach, 14-45 a year ago, is 50-13 and headed for the College World Series, which begins Friday in Omaha. In the middle of it all--or at least in the general vicinity--is Croghan.

The 6-foot-5 freshman is 12-0, including a 10-3 victory over Arizona in the West I Regional final on Monday.

Croghan, who was in the 49ers’ bullpen for the first six games of the season (two saves), worked his way into the rotation and is now the team’s No. 2 starter. What impressed Long Beach Coach Dave Snow was that Croghan threw strikes, unlike a couple of his starters.

In game No. 7, Croghan was given a chance to start and he beat Cal State Dominguez Hills, 6-2. He pitched 6 1/3 innings for the victory and was sent back to the bullpen.

“It was just a spot start, we needed to rest a couple of our pitchers,” Snow said. “But he did such a good job that we wanted to give him another opportunity.”

Three weeks later, Croghan got another shot at starting and went the distance to beat Pepperdine, 9-2. From that point, he was in the starting rotation.

Croghan ranks second on the team in victories, earned-run average (3.09), innings pitched (125 1/3), strikeouts (106) and complete games (six). Kyle Abbott, who played at Mission Viejo High School, leads the team in all those categories.

“We had no expectations for Andy at the start of the season,” Snow said. “We knew he could be a quality pitcher, but he’s turned out to be a vital part of our staff.”

High praise for a guy who was sick of baseball four years ago.

Croghan started pitching at age 7 in Yorba Linda youth leagues. By the time he was a freshman at Servite, he’d had enough.

Fred Croghan, Andy’s father, was understanding, but puzzled.

“Since he was a little kid, Andy always had baseball on his mind,” Croghan said. “It was his life. I didn’t know what had changed.”

Said Andy Croghan: “Baseball wasn’t fun anymore. After seven years, I was burned out with pitching.”

Croghan didn’t compete in athletics as a freshman. He played basketball as a sophomore, but spent most of his free time hanging around the house.

Fred Croghan didn’t see this as a healthy situation.

“It was his decision, we never pushed our kids into anything,” Fred Croghan said. “I did tell him that he should find something to do with his time.”

Fred Croghan did a little more than that, though.

“One morning dad packed my baseball gear and told me to try out for the team,” said Andy Croghan, who was a sophomore at the time.

Croghan discovered that father knew best.

Servite Coach Mike McNary was so impressed with Croghan that he was put on the junior varsity.

Croghan finished with a 9-2 record and was voted the team’s most valuable player. As a junior, he was moved up to the varsity.

In 1987, the Friars were well-stocked with starting pitchers. To begin with, McNary had senior James Ferguson, who lost just one game in three years at Servite. McNary also had Craig Barkley, a senior who was a starter the previous season.

“We felt the best place for Andy was in the bullpen,” McNary said. “We had used Ferguson there the previous year and we needed someone to be a stopper.”

Croghan filled the bill. He was 5-3 and saved seven games. But it was the disappointment with the way the season ended that Croghan always will remember about that year.

Servite played top-seeded Esperanza in the quarterfinals of the Southern Section 4-A playoffs, a team the Friars had beaten in a nonleague game that season with Croghan pitching three hitless innings.

In the playoffs, however, the Friars squandered a 5-0 lead and lost, 7-5, in nine innings. Croghan gave up a two-run homer to Tom Redington that tied the score, 5-5, in the seventh. He also surrendered a two-run double to Doug Sanders in the ninth.

“That game will haunt me the rest of my life,” Croghan said.

In 1988, Croghan quickly began to exorcise the ghosts of the past. He won his first four games and was attracting a lot of interest from college recruiters and professional scouts. His fastball was clocked between 85 and 87 miles per hour and he was developing a good split-finger fastball.

But Croghan struggled the rest of the season, which ended with two disappointing outings. Going into the last game of the season against Mater Dei, Croghan was 6-2.

Because both teams had several college and pro prospects, both coaches decided to showcase the game. It was moved to Glover Stadium and drew a large number of scouts and recruiters.

Croghan lasted four innings. He gave up eight runs, including home runs by Rob Ickes and Jim Austin.

“After that game, Andy’s stock dropped,” McNary said. “I talked to a few scouts afterwards, but they were interested in other players on the team. There wasn’t a lot of talk about Andy.”

Croghan’s high school career ended a week later with more playoff torture.

In the first round of the 5-A playoffs, he pitched a six-hitter against Nogales. However, three of those hits were home runs and Servite lost, 3-1.

“We played at our place and the fences are pretty short,” Croghan said. “Two of them were fly balls that barely made it over the fence.”

Croghan was drafted in the 19th round by the Chicago Cubs, but turned down their offer. He felt he need more time to mature.

This time, the question was . . . where?

“I had received a lot of letters early in the season, but nobody offered me a scholarship,” Croghan said. “I was all set to go to Cypress when Coach Snow approached me.”

Snow, who had just resigned at Loyola Marymount to take the Long Beach job, had seen Croghan pitch against Mater Dei, but was impressed anyway.

“He was getting the ball up, that was his only problem that day,” Snow said. “He was a big kid who was very limber. You can take a kid like that and make him into a good pitcher.”

Snow continued to follow Croghan during the summer when Croghan was pitching for his Connie Mack team.

“I was stunned to learn that no one had offered him a scholarship,” Snow said. “This kid could be great.”

So Snow offered Croghan a scholarship on the spot.

“There a lot of kids who hit .500 in high school that aren’t college prospects,” Snow said. “Andy was a college prospect. I don’t care how his season ended.”

Croghan worked over the summer on keeping the ball down. He also developed his split-finger--a sinking fastball--to the point where it replaced his fastball as his out-pitch.

“The difference is Andy was pitching above the belt in high school, now he’s down around the knees,” Snow said.

Snow has become so confident in Croghan that he used him twice in key games during the regional.

In the opener against Hawaii, Snow started the game with relief pitchers, hoping to save his starters for later games. However, after Long Beach fell behind, 5-4, in the third, he called on Croghan.

Croghan got out of a first-and-third situation with one pitch and went on to pitch 4 1/3 shutout innings for the victory.

“He may be a freshman on paper, but on the mound his age doesn’t matter,” Snow said. “Not the way he’s pitching.”

On Sunday, Long Beach beat Oklahoma and Arizona to take control of the regional. The 49ers needed to win one of two games against Arizona on Monday to win qualify for the College World Series.

And, it was Croghan who drew the first game against the Wildcats.

“My first thought was about that Esperanza game and how I haven’t done too well in playoff situations,” Croghan said. “I spent the whole day worrying about it. I finally told myself to stop thinking and just pitch.”

And, when it comes to that, Croghan doesn’t need to ask how.

49ERS’ ORANGE COUNTY INFLUENCE County players on Long Beach State’s Big West championship baseball team

Hitters Pos County High HR RBI BA School/College Chris Gill 2B Mater Dei 2 35 .361 Todd Lloyd OF Katella/Rancho 2 18 .319 Santiago College Thomas Smythe 1B Ocean View/Golden 0 10 .225 West College Pitchers County High G W-L ERA School/College Craig Oden Brea-Olinda/ 2 0-0 0.00 Fullerton College Kyle Abbott Mission Viejo 20 15-2 2.37 Andy Croghan Servite 19 12-0 3.09 Jeff Kanega Garden Grove 5 1-0 3.38 Edward Lidyoff Huntingon Beach 1 0-0 27.00 /Golden West Coll.