I decided to do some research on my one claim to “fame”.  My 2nd year of playing baseball at Howard Payne University, we began the season playing Texas Tech in Lubbock, which was the biggest series of our season.  I started the first game at 1B, and their best pitcher was opening the season for them, Mark Brandenburg.  I got 2 hits in 3 at-bats off him, including a shot off his knee that ricocheted into foul territory.  He went on to be drafted by the Texas Rangers, who obviously did not see that game or they would have drafted me instead.  He pitched 3 years in the majors for both the Rangers and the Red Sox, and made about $650,000 during his career.  He was a submarine pitcher out of the bullpen.  Just recently he was inducted into the Texas Tech Athletics Hall of Fame.  Here’s his MLB stats.

Mark Brandenburg

Unfortunately, my baseball career went downhill from that point.  I only got about 3 more hits the rest of the season.  I think my problem was that I can only hit major league pitching.  I just couldn’t hit the college pitchers.  But I guess something good came out of it, because I got engaged to my wife shortly after that and she didn’t want me playing professional baseball anyway, dragging them all around the country to root for me.  What kind of life would that have been?  Not for me, no sir.  But I do sometimes feel like I should try to make contact with him now to check to make sure his knee is ok from that bullet I hit off it.