May 9, 2008

By Bart Wright, The Greenville News

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- The nation's leading hitter didn't expect to play much this year, and after getting a look at him last fall, neither did his coach.

But as of Tuesday afternoon, the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Web site still had Furman University freshman Reese Wade listed atop its ranking of Division I leaders in batting average with a .466 average through games of a week ago.

"To be honest with you, I didn't know how much he'd be playing this year," Furman coach Ron Smith said before Tuesday's nonconference game against Charleston Southern. "In the fall, he was pulling everything he swung at and I told him, `You're not going to able to hit the ball to right field every time you're up at this level; you have to use the whole field."

For the first dozen games this year, Wade was confined to the bench. Then one day Smith watched him spread the ball around the field in practice. The next day Smith noticed the same thing.

He put the kid in the lineup at Charlotte on March 11, and it turned out to be the start of something special.

"He got one hit (in three plate appearances)," Smith said, "but all three times, he hit the ball hard. I'm not into statistics as much as some guys, but when I see people hitting the ball like he does, I like to put them in the lineup."

The NCAA stats are a few days behind, but Wade started the week with a .464 average, 45 base hits in 97 at-bats. He has walked 13 times and struck out only eight times.

Oh, yeah, he has no home runs and only 13 runs batted in. He admits to be something of a liability in the field, which is why he has been only a designated hitter. Also, Wade can't run, or to be more precise, he can't run very fast.

Still, he has this sweet, natural left-handed swing that looks familiar.

"I hesitate to say it because it sounds like I'm trying to make some kind of a direct comparison, which I'm not," Smith said. "But when I watch his swing, it reminds me of Wade Boggs. He has great hands and he is one of those who lets gravity do the work for him. He always has that bat head dropping down on the ball and then -- smack -- just like that."

So far, so good for Wade's freshman year.

"Frankly, I think it's a statistical anomaly," Wade said. "I had a lousy fall, and I didn't expect to play hardly at all this year. To be sitting here talking about (leading the nation in batting average) is something that surprises me, to say the least."

Maybe so, but that might be just humility showing through on this educationally motivated political science major from Dallas.

In four years of high school baseball at Episcopal School of Dallas, Wade averaged .493. In his last two seasons, he struck out a total of two times, not once as junior.

So, why would he surprised to be doing what he's always done?

"It's just that I didn't expect to get in a lot of games as a freshman," he said. "I do hate getting out, though, and I do some extra work on my swing to try to build up the muscle memory. The way it's going now, I just hope to ride this wave for as long as I can and try not to think about it too much."

Wade said he wanted to get away from home for college and thought he might have a chance to play at the Southern Conference level, so he applied early to Davidson, assumed his grades would get him in, and then wound up on a waiting list.

His father, a computer consultant, put together a tape of "maybe 10 or 12 swings" and sent it out to schools Wade was interested in attending, including Furman. One thing, as they say, led to another.

"The thing about him as a coach that I love is that he always has good at-bats," Smith said. "He steps in the batter's box to compete and he isn't afraid of anything. How he'll develop over time, we'll see, but he certainly can get stronger and he needs to work on his speed because right now, he earns every one of those hits; he isn't getting any of them by outrunning a ground ball."

Strength is something that can always improve, and he might be able to get a little faster, but that swing?

The best advice on that for Reese Wade is to keep doing what he's been doing.