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Starting Lineup
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Brackman headed to Cuba
Pack pitcher, now healthy, joins Team USA for Worlds
Chip Alexander, Staff Writer
N.C. State's Andrew Brackman will be making one last summer excursion before returning to school -- to Havana.
Brackman, who spent much of July pitching in the Cape Cod Baseball League, has been added to the USA Baseball national team roster. Eric Campbell, general manager for the national teams, said Monday that the 6-foot-10 right-hander will travel this week with the U.S. team to the FISU World Championships in Cuba.
Campbell said Brackman, a rising junior at NCSU, would pitch Wednesday night for Team USA in an exhibition game against the Fayetteville SwampDogs in Fayetteville. The U.S. faces Chinese Taipei on Sunday in the opener of the World Championships in Havana's Latino Stadium.
"We're excited about having Andrew join the team," Campbell said. "We had a player leave the team for a family emergency and we replaced him with Andrew, who was our first alternate.
"We understand Andrew is completely healthy. He had some health obstacles in the spring but he appears to be over them."
Brackman, a forward on the Pack's basketball team, pitched for the baseball team before the basketball season ended. He struggled to a 1-3 record, with a 6.35 ERA, before being sidelined in May by a stress fracture in his left hip.
"It was awful," Brackman said Monday. "I knew something was wrong but I didn't know it was that serious. It came from all that jumping and running [in basketball] and it just carried over into baseball."
Brackman said it took seven weeks of rest to heal the injury, although he was able to do some light throwing. Hethen joined the Orleans (Mass.) Cardinals in early July, posing a 1-0 record in six games with a 1.06 ERA.
Brackman said his fastball was clocked at 99 mph a "couple of times." In one recent game, NCSU baseball coach Elliott Avent said, more than 40 baseball scouts turned out to see Brackman pitch.
"Drew had a tough year but he's gotten over the injury," Avent said. "USA Baseball wouldn't have taken him unless they had heard good things about him. It should be quite an experience for him."
Brackman attended USA Baseball trials in 2005 after a stellar freshman season at NCSU in which he went 4-0 with a 2.25 ERA. Campbell said he was the last player cut from the team.
"Because of his injury, he was not invited to the trials this year," Campbell said. "But we had him listed as an alternate based on the strength of the trials last year."
Campbell said Wes Roemer, a right-hander from Cal State-Fullerton, recently was forced to leave the national team. That opened up a spot for Brackman.
Brackman, 20, will be eligible for the Major League Baseball draft after his junior season and there is speculation he may give up basketball to train and focus on baseball this year. Brackman said Monday that no decision had been made and that he would soon meet with new Wolfpack basketball coach Sidney Lowe to discuss his plans.
http://www.newsobserver.com/752/story/466473.html
-if he's pitching this nasty he shouldn't waste his team with bball  8/1/2006 10:55:15 AM
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Duchess
All American
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^hahaha, I did the same exact thing! I couldnt figure out for the life of me, who Hethen was, and why they brought him up.
Andrew plays in Fayetteville today, yay! 8/2/2006 2:40:54 PM |
