Driven to Succeed : Traffic Accident Has Helped Titans’ Ferguson Put Life, Baseball Career Goals in Perspective

The Chevy Blazer was rolling through a forlorn stretch of Texas highway early in the morning of Nov. 26, 1989.

Jeff Ferguson, his father and stepmother were passengers in a truck returning to their Whittier home after a Thanksgiving week trip to visit relatives in Asheville, N.C. A 21-year-old cousin was taking his turn behind the wheel.

Ferguson, then 16, was half-asleep, but he remembers hearing his father scream at his cousin to wake up. And, at almost the same instant, the truck veered off the road, then was rolling over and over on its side.

“I really don’t remember anything else that happened,” Ferguson said. “I just know that I blacked out and when I woke up, I was in the hospital.”

Ferguson’s first thought was that he might be partially paralyzed.

“I couldn’t move my right side at all,” he said. “The doctors told me my pelvis was cracked in three places, but that I was going to be all right. I guess I really was lucky. It could have been a lot worse. The other people in my family weren’t hurt that badly either, although my dad still has some trouble from a leg that was shattered.”

The accident made Ferguson, even at his young age, realize how quickly people’s lives can be turned upside down. Even now, the accident, he says, reminds him to take full advantage of what he’s been given. And what Ferguson feels he does better than anything else, is play baseball. Ferguson is a team leader as a junior second baseman for the Cal State Fullerton baseball team that has been highly ranked nationally all season and is battling Nevada and Long Beach State for the Big West Conference championship. He’s hitting .364, tops among the starters and has five home runs and 38 runs batted in.

“I want to give baseball all I’ve got right now, so I’ll be able to look back and know I did that . . . because everything can be taken away from you, just the way it could have been taken away from me in the accident,” he said.

Watch him on the field, at bat or running the bases and you see a young Pete Rose look-alike. He hustles when he gets off the team bus, and he doesn’t stop until he finds a postgame shower. He welcomes any comparison anyone wants to draw between him and Rose. “It’s great what he did for the game,” Ferguson said. “He should be in the Hall of Fame. When you watch tapes of the guy, you see him always running hard and trying to do something to win on ever play. That’s the way the game should be played. God didn’t give him all the tools he did some players, but he did it with what he had. That’s the way I want to be.”

One of his teammates, pitcher Mike Parisi, said Ferguson leads by example. “He’s not a real vocal guy, but everyone respects him for the way he plays the game all-out,” he said. “You can just tell he loves baseball. He loves practicing. There’s not a day I don’t see him playing at 100%.”

His coaches, Augie Garrido and George Horton, feel he’s making the most of his ability now, too. He appears slight, at 5 feet 10 and 175 pounds, and his arm strength is only average for an infielder. But he’s benefited this year from the move from third base to second.

“He’s the hardest working kid I’ve ever coached anywhere,” Horton said. “He’s really self-motivated. He practices and plays the game as hard as it can be played. He has real intensity.”

Horton feels Ferguson has been helped immeasurably by the move to second base. “I only wish we’d have gotten him to second earlier in his career,” Horton said. “He’s probably been helped offensively by the comfort he feels playing there defensively. I think he was somewhat distracted by having to play third base last year.”

Garrido believes he’s definitely a strong pro prospect at second. “It certainly seems to be his position, and he continues to show improvement and develop there,” Garrido said.

It is on offense, however, that Ferguson excels.

He’s consistently hit for a high average wherever he’s played. At La Serna High School in Whittier, he batted .425 as a sophomore, .373 as a junior and .636 in a senior season in which he also had 13 home runs. As a backup shortstop in his freshman year at Fullerton, he batted only 37 times, but still batted .405. That set the stage for him to win a starting spot as a sophomore, and he hit .318 with 36 RBIs in 51 games.

“He’s going to be the kind of player who will hit around .300 at every level he plays in the minor leagues and then someone is going to say, ‘Let’s see if he can do it in the majors.’ ” Horton said. “The thing about Jeff is that he makes good decisions at the plate. His hand-eye coordination is way above average.”

Ferguson believes he does have the ability to read pitches quickly. “I look for certain pitches in certain situations, but I do feel I have an eye for the ball . . . “ he said. “Augie has talked to me a lot about being focused pitch by pitch and to not be bothered by it if I feel I’ve gotten a bad call.”

Ferguson says he’s eager to try his abilities on the pro level and has decided that he will sign after this season, regardless of what happens the rest of the way.

“Playing professional baseball has been my dream for a long time and I feel I’m ready for that now,” he said. “It’s time to move on. Baseball is all I’ve ever wanted to do. If I don’t make it, I’ll come back and finish college and be a coach or scout, but I know I’ll still want to be around the game.”

Ferguson still has some unfinished business at Fullerton, however. The Titans still have a shot at the Big West title and the NCAA regional tournament is rapidly approaching.

“We’re going to win it all this time, the World Series,” he said, smiling. “Everything is right for it.”