SPORTS
NEW FOOTBALL DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR ANNOUNCED
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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PARKS CITY
WWW.KANSAN.COM
TUESDAY,MAY 6,2008
ALLMAN NAMED BIG 12 PLAYER OF THE WEEK PAGE2
PAGE 2B
SHARING THE FIELD
PAGE1B
Game makes foe a friend
BY SHAWN SHROYER
shroyer@kansan.com
Rachel Anne Sevmour/KANSAN
Kansas seniors Ryne Price, left, and Erik Morrison, right, want to play in the final Big 12 Championship this year. Price and Morrison have a long history playing baseball both as opponents and teammates. The two first met as 10-year-old little league players in California.
It's a story Ryne Price has told many times. He's become pretty good at telling it.
The story is about the events that transpired between Price and Missouri third baseman Brock Bond seconds after Price's second inning home run against Missouri in the 2006 Big 12 Championship.
"I was trotting around the bases and coming around second, I looked up to go to third and I'm like, 'This guy's right in my way, so if he doesn't move I'm going to go right into him.'" Price said. "He didn't get out of the way, so I lower my shoulder and bump into him. He scuffles back, comes at me, throws a punch and I dodged him like Willie Mays Hayes-Style. Then I grabbed him and threw him to the ground."
The story is also about two friends having each other's back. At its core, it's the story of the friendship forged between Kansas seniors Ryne Price and Erik Morrison.
"The umpire tackled me over him," Price continued, "and the first guy there was Erik. He got him pretty good - square right to the jaw. It was pretty tight just to know that he was the first one there."
Price and Morrison were just sophomores, but their friendship goes back years before their days as Jayhawks. All the way back to their youth as 10-year-old enemies playing on opposing little league teams in California. Their friendship survived their high school years when Price moved to Kansas and Morrison stayed behind in California. It strengthened after they reunited as college freshmen. And with their college careers nearing an end, Price and Morrison are hoping for one more memorable Big 12 Championship.
THE EARLY YEARS
As close as Price and Morrison are now, there was a time when the two could have just as easily been starting fights between themselves. Morrison likes to tell this story about the mutual respect between Price and Morrison before they became teammates.
When the two were in little league, Price played for a team from San Luis Obispo, Calif., while Morrison played for a team from Arroyo Grande, Calif. Price was a pitcher and the way he remembers it, Morrison was the "feared" player in the opposition's lineup. The friendship between them was still in its developmental stages then to say the least.
"We were enemies at the same time, oh yeah," Morrison said. "He thought that he was real funny when he'd pitch. I've faced him probably 20 times and he's hit me at least 10 of those 20 times."
In Price's defense, he said he was just trying to keep from serving one up over the middle of the plate.
"I always had a knack for just dosing him right in the back," Price said. "But also I'd rather hit him than give up a bomb to him."
But there was always an understanding between the two that kept them from taking the rivalry too far.
When Price and Morrison were freshmen in high school and playing on San Luis Obispo and Arroyo Grande's respective junior varsity teams, Morrison remembers one game in particular in which Price homered against his team.
"They were playing us at our place and
he hit a home run and I was playing short-stop," Morrison said. "He rounded second base and I gave him a high five then."
If there was any doubt before that the two would grow up to be close friends, it evaporated in that exchange.
Although they played against each other on their high school teams, they played together during summers for the Firestone Rangers in San Luis Obispo.
"It was nice that I didn't have to face him in the box anymore just so I wouldn't get hit," Morrison said.
The more they played on the same team, the more a certain college coach envisioned them playing together at the collegiate level - Price's father Ritch Price, who was coaching at California Polytechnic State University at the time.
"I knew when I saw him play when he was 10 he was going to be on my recruiting list," coach Price said of Morrison.
But the summer before Price's junior year of high school, he was forced to move with his family from San Luis Obispo to Lawrence when Ritch was hired to be the baseball coach at Kansas. Still, Price and Morrison kept in touch and every summer Price would return to California with his younger brother Robby to rejoin Morrison and the Rangers.
In 2003 they won the United States American Baseball Federation 18 and under World Series with the Rangers. At the end of the summer though, Price went one way while Morrison went the other; separated by 1,700 miles for the next nine months until baseball would reuite them
once again.
However, at the end of the 2004 summer season, Price didn't have to make the long drive home on his own. Morrison was headed to Lawrence, too.
"We ended our summer season and we both had our cars packed up and we followed each other out, so we got here at the same time," Price said. "It was nice having him here because we were both kind of like, 'What the hell do we do now?'"
PLAYING FOR KANSAS
After adjusting to the rigors of college life, Price and Morrison came into their own on the diamond.
Price started 60 games at second base in 2005 and collected a Kansas freshmanrecord 40 RBI to go along with his five
home runs and all-Big 12 second team honors. Morrison set a freshman record appearing in 63 games, starting 62, at third base and drove in 36 runs.
Despite Morrison's successes on the field, there was no doubt he missed home. But having Price there in the same clubhouse alleviated some of his homesickness.
"It helped a lot knowing him out here and that I've got like a brother out here," Morrison said.
With a year's experience in college – as well as Kansas - Morrison emerged as a premier third baseman in the Big 12 in 2006. He upped his average from .221 to .290 and led Kansas with 14 home runs and drove in 52 runs.
SEE FRIENDS ON PAGE 8B
BASEBALL
Jayhawks quietly stay eligible for Big 12 Tournament
The atmosphere of an afternoon contest in Allen Fieldhouse is tough to top, and a full Memorial Stadium on a full Saturday is a wonderful place to be, but neither venues hosted do-or-die, elimination events this year.
The basketball team breezed through its home schedule, and the football team dominated each of its unfortunate opponents.
If you're in search of Jayhawk home games with relevance, head to Hoglund
Ballpark, where Kansas baseball has been busy winning its way out of the Big 12 Conference cellar.
The Jayhawks currently sit at seventh place in the 10-team Big 12 (Iowa State and Colorado do not field baseball teams). Since only the top eight teams earn a trip to the Big 12 Tournament, Kansas' slim 1.5-game advantage over ninth-place Oklahoma doesn't offer much margin of error. Only two games separate 10th-place Texas Tech and Kansas, giving the final two weeks of the Big 12 regular season a sudden death feel. One small slip-up could cost a team its postseason berth.
"At this point in the season, just getting into the tournament is our goal," senior leftfielder John Allman said. "Once you get into the tournament, anything can happen after that."
If the layhawks survive their next two series - against fourth-place Missouri and eighth-place Kansas State - and make the
Big 12 Conference tournament, they certainly have Cinderella potential. Kansas scored 17 runs on Friday, added 13 on Saturday and scored nine to finish off a three-game sweep of Oklahoma.
The Jayhawks' record-setting offensive explosion came on the heels of a lights-out pitching performance one week ago by sophomore Shaeffer Hall in a 3-0 victory against Missouri. During Kansas' current hot streak, the team has won its last six conference home games and pulled itself from the bottom of the Big 12 barrel to the middle of the conference. Considering the Big 12 could be the third best baseball conference in the nation, Kansas' recent success is no small feat.
Although, maybe it shouldn't come as such a surprise that the Jayhawks have burst onto the scene of late: When the weather gets warm, Kansas usually does too. The team struggled through frequent rain delays and cancellations, played in
snow flurries, and scrambled to reschedule early-season rainouts, sometimes to no avail. Now that the temperatures are in the 60's and the sun is out of hiding, Kansas seems to have hit its groove.
"The reality is, it seems like we're behind until about the middle of April," Kansas coach Ritch Price said. "Then we're finally able to catch up in every phase of the game."
Allman used the term "synergy" to describe what the Jayhawks have felt the past few weeks. Freshman third baseman Tony Thompson said he was just settling in and getting comfortable as a college ballplayer - a statement backed up by his 3-for-3, two-RBI performance last Friday. Hall has realized his potential as a reliable long reliever, and diminutive freshman pitcher T.J. Walz is turning into the team's best starting hurler.
There's something special brewing at the ballpark just south of Allen Fieldhouse,
and there are only five more chances to check it out this season. The Jayhawks will play their final nonconference contest Wednesday against a strong Oral Roberts squad before facing Missouri this weekend. The Tigers will send starting pitcher Aaron Crow, a future first round MLB draft pick, to the hill Friday to face the Jayhawks' red-hot offense.
Kansas will finish its home season next Friday against Kansas State. The series could have major postseason implications, though whether it will be for seeding, or for a chance to make the tournament, remains to be seen.
With the overwhelming success of both basketball and football, it's been a while since Kansas has had a lovable underdog squad to cheer for. That's all the more reason to catch a glimpse of Jayhawk baseball's late run to the postseason.
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Edited by Nick Mangiaracina