ZIGZAG COURSE
Sometimes, the temperature dips to the low 40s during games, but Barry Matthews gets past it with mind over shivering matter.
“At first, it’s a shock factor,” Matthews said. “Then you realize you can’t change that and you go out there and deal with it.”
Sometimes, home seems so far away, but Matthews has persevered.
“Yes, I was a little lonely and I missed my family and friends,” he said.
Sometimes, opportunity calls from unlikely places.
As Matthews learned, it’s wise to listen.
“I kind of just fell into it,” Matthews said.
Lucky for him and for the baseball team at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., the West Coast Conference’s northernmost and coldest outpost.
Matthews, a junior left-handed pitcher and designated hitter, is among the team’s leading players. He is what longtime Coach Steve Hertz said are “really two guys for us.”
They, er, Matthews became a Bulldog by chance.
After ending an all-league career at Crespi High in 1996, Matthews spent his freshman year at Cal State Northridge as a redshirt, waiting for an opening in the outfield. It never came.
Northridge temporarily dropped baseball in the summer of 1997 because of economics and gender-equity concerns in athletics, leaving players to hunt for other programs.
By the time Northridge reinstated baseball and three other men’s programs a few weeks later, Matthews was at Pierce College, on his way to batting .379 and posting a 4-2 record in helping the Brahmas win the Western State Conference Southern Division title in 1998.
“[Matthews] and [Barry] Zito were a formidable one-two punch on the mound for us that year,” Coach Bob Lofrano of Pierce said. “[Matthews] also played first base for us and batted third.”
Besides teaming with Zito, now in triple-A ball with the Oakland Athletics and on a fast track to the majors, Matthews played at Pierce with Jared Hertz, an outfielder with ties to a certain coach in the Pacific Northwest.
“I told Jared, ‘Why didn’t you tell me your uncle was a Division I coach? Why don’t you hook me up with a scholarship?’ ” Matthews said. “I was just kidding.”
The Bulldogs weren’t.
Steve Hertz, a former Taft and Pierce player, came to the Valley to recruit pitcher Mike Jackson of Crespi and stopped to watch Matthews in practice. He wasn’t disappointed.
“Every year, we look at [Pierce’s] players,” said Hertz, in his 21st season at Gonzaga. “My nephew kept me abreast and my brother Bill [Jared’s father] told me I should take a look at Matthews.”
Matthews wanted to get away from Southern California, but he wasn’t sure about going that far from his family, to a cold-weather town and a school where basketball rules.
On the flip side, the Bulldogs play in the WCC, which means games at Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount and San Diego. Moreover, Jackson and Jared Hertz also were headed to Gonzaga.
“I wanted to prove to myself I could play at the Division I level,” Matthews said. “I was a little unsure if it was the right decision for me last year, but I look back and it was a great decision.”
And looking better every day.
Matthews is 7-1 with a 4.05 earned-run average and three complete games, and he is batting .319 with five home runs and a team-high 37 runs batted in.
His seven victories lead the WCC and include a 7-3 nonconference decision over Washington in February, in which he struck out 14 and allowed six hits and one earned run in eight innings.
“He’s so valuable to us as a starting pitcher,” Steve Hertz said. “He’s still learning how to pitch and he’s a wonderful competitor. And he hits [fourth or fifth] every game as a DH [or pitcher].”
Matthews is comfortable in either role, even when the wind cuts to the bone.
“I take a lot of pride in my hitting and I take a lot of pride in my pitching,” Matthews said. “I play hard no matter what. I’m having a lot of fun.”