May 7, 2000
By Pete LaFleur
If you had the chance to catch Notre Dame taking batting practice
before today's game, you might have sworn that freshman Brian Stavisky has
been hitting home runs all his life.
But that's not the case. Although he proved capable of smacking
whiffle balls over his grandparents' house as a four-year-old, Stavisky's
first official home run didn't come until the tender age of eight-when he
cleared a 220-foot fence in a Little League game. By the time he was 12,
Stavisky turned in a season in which he hit more home runs (16), over
320-foot fences, than games played (15).
His four-year prep career yielded 46 home runs over the course of
60 games and this season-in a year when home runs are down by 20 percent
all across college baseball-Stavisky has left the yard 13 times to break
the Irish freshman record (11) set by Brant Ust in 1997 (no other Irish
player has hit more than six homers this season).
Yet to understand Brian Stavisky, one must do more than simply gawk
at his tape-measure blasts during any given BP session. The 6-3, 230-pound
lefthander was listed by Baseball America as the No. 5 prospect among
current college freshman, and those type of projections are not typically
tossed at the feet of one-dimensional players-no matter how far they can
hit a baseball. Rather, Stavisky has drawn the raves of scouts and his
teammates due to a developing all-around game that has produced a BIG
EAST-leading five triples, improved efficiency at the plate versus
off-speed pitches and going to the opposite field, and some
"hang-a-star-on-that-one" plays while patrolling his defensive position in
right field.
"The sky is the limit for Brian right now and people are just
beginning to see the type of multi-dimensional player that he can become,"
says sixth-year Notre Dame head coach Paul Mainieri, who has seen 20 of his
former Irish players move on to pro baseball. "Brian always has had the
Notre Dame spirit in his system and he has improved as the year has gone
on. He used to flat-out dominate in high school and it took some adjusting
to the college game.
"The thing about Brian is that people may be in awe of his huge
home runs, but they don't see him coming out three hours before a game to
practice his defense-it's things like that which will help him be a great
player and which make him a tremendous team player. He has 180 at-bats
under his belt and has worked hard on hitting breaking balls and changeups
and going to the opposite field when teams pitch him away. Brian already is
a great leader for us and is the type of player that we want leading the
Notre Dame baseball program."
Current Irish pitching coach/recruiting coordinator Brian O'Connor
had seen Stavisky play at the 1999 Team One Showcase in Clemson, S.C., and
Mainieri flew in as well to get a first-hand look. Stavisky-whose cousin
Dan Stavisky was a pitcher with the Irish from 1995-98-turned in what he
called "a pretty decent showing" at the Showcase, versus some of the
nation's top prep pitchers, including a 91 mile-per-hour fastball that he
quickly redirected over the fences.
"We had been close to Brian's cousin Dan during his career here and
Dan pushed for us to consider signing Brian," recalls Mainieri. "Once I saw
him play, I knew that we wanted him badly. It's interesting because Brian
even wasn't sure how good he was, because he came from such a small
hometown and had not gained all that much exposure on a national level. But
we told him that we felt he could excel on the college level and that's all
Brian had to hear-because he really wanted to come to Notre Dame."
If not for his strong convictions to attend Notre Dame, Stavisky
undoubtedly would have been selected higher in the 1999 Major League draft
than his 12th-round selection by the Montreal Expos. His four-year prep
career included playing two seasons with Oswayo Valley (Pa.) High School
before serving as two-year team captain at Port Allegany (which did not
field a baseball team until '98)-with his combined stats boggling the mind:
a .582 batting avg. (142-for-244), 1.287 slugging pct. and .725 on-base
pct., 46 home runs, three triples, 28 doubles, 79 walks, 140 runs, 160 RBI,
just 11 strikeouts and 60-20 team record.
Possibly one of the most impressive statistics from Stavisky's prep
career was that he averaged 4.2 home runs for every time he struck out and
his strikeouts were spaced out by an average of nearly 30 plate
appearances. That type of dominance quickly changed on the college level,
as Stavisky had equaled his prep strikeout total by Notre Dame's 17th game
of the season. He routinely chased balls that were out of the zone and had
trouble hitting off-speed pitches. And consecutive 0-for-4 games on April
12-13-still his only back-to-back hitless games all season-had Stavisky
reaching new levels of frustration.
"I was really frustrated after those games, but it all changed that
weekend at West Virginia. I had some family and friends there and it made
me comfortable having them there" says Stavisky, who proceeded to fashion a
10-game hitting streak that led to him being named BIG EAST player of the
week (he remains the league's only freshman to be so honored this season).
Stavisky's talents extend outside baseball and beyond the realm of
athletics. His youth sports exploits included posting a school-record 1,948
career points in basketball, turning in a runner-up finish at the national
Punt-Pass-and-Kick competition and shooting a 74 in his first 18 holes as a
member of the varsity golf team. Off the field, he played trumpet in the
school band, performed the lead role in the musical "Grease" and graduated
first in his class with a 3.9 GPA. That level of all-around success has
continued at Notre Dame, as Stavisky posted a 3.87 GPA in the 1999 fall
semesters and has been accepted into the prestigious Academic Honors
faculty mentoring program for student-athletes.
The everyday life of a Notre Dame student also has appealed to
Stavisky. "There's a lot more you can learn from going to college, aside
from just playing baseball," he says. "I thought that before and believe it
even more now. I've grown up by being out on my own, relying on others but
also doing things for myself.
"The Notre Dame community is a great thing for support and
activities. Living in Keenan Hall, I've had the chance to experience things
like the Keenan Review (an annual talent show), football pep rallies and
dances-things that bring the dorm together. There are so many guys that you
can count on in the dorm-just like on the team-and those types of things
have helped me adjust to college life."
Stavisky's rookie season has included several memorable moments,
ranging from the subtle-like when his low line drive broke the webbing in
the glove of West Virginia first baseman Kevin Olokowski-to the
unforgettable, such as the home run he launched in early April at
Connecticut. The ball carried high over the leftfield fence, cleared the
back portion of the UConn softball field and landed in the service
road-some 100 feet past the edge of the fence. Conservative estimates put
the blast at 450 feet and evoked memories of a towering shot by former
Seton Hall great Mo Vaughn that smacked off the soccer stadium, on the far
side of the service road.
"That was one of the best-feeling home runs I've ever hit," says
Stavisky. "Sometimes, it feels like you didn't even hit it and that's how
it felt on that home run."
Stavisky's teammates count themselves among his biggest fans. "It's
like how people show up to watch Mark McGwire take BP-everyone on the team
feels that way," says senior first baseman Jeff Felker. "We stand there in
wonder of what he can do-I'll never forget the balls he hit into the upper
deck at the Metrodome.
"But the guy has had a pretty solid freshman year. He really adapts
well from one pitch to the next and I've seen him hit home runs on a pitch
that he missed badly on earlier in the game. Brian also has played some
great defense for us in right field this season and when he gets moving is
one of the team's best baserunners-but those are things that get
overshadowed by his power."
As he nears the end of his first season with the Irish, Stavisky
hopes to improve on his batting average with runners in scoring position
(.250) and with two outs (.262) while continuing to cut down his strikeouts
(he has 31 in 50 games, but none in the last four). Known for strong wrists
and a lightning-quick bat, Stavisky has come to realize that he often is
his own worst enemy at the plate.
"The most important thing for me now is working on having more
balance at the place, because sometimes my wrists get me out in front out
pitches too much and I don't have the best control of the bat," he says.
"It's been a great season, but I want to help this team do even greater
things down the stretch."
