Keeping his inner Wildcat pride tame
So, you’re a Rule 5 rookie and your alma mater — in this case Arizona — defeats Mississippi State to reach the NCAA Division I College World Series. Do you: (a) Don your 2012 Wildcats national championship ring and wave it front of everybody’s face on the team bus in Toronto?
(b) Parade around the visitors’ clubhouse at Toronto’s Rogers Centre in your U of A T-shirt and basketball shorts? (c) Keep your head down? Orioles outfielder Joey Rickard did the smart thing. He let manager Buck Showalter bring up the subject last Sunday and then just played it cool. He hasn’t been around long enough to be needling his manager, whose allegiance to Mississippi State is an almost daily thread that runs through his pregame news conference.
“He mentioned it,” Rickard said. “I didn’t bring it up because I didn’t know how sensitive he would be about it. But yeah, it was a good, hard-fought series and fortunately for me, my team came out on top.”
Showalter isn’t sensitive about anything except two-inning starts. He said Rickard did stand up for his team, just not very stridently.
“He did, but you could tell he was trying to figure out just how far he should go with it,” Showalter said.
Rickard says he might take things a little further if the Wildcats go on to win the NCAA title — something that his Arizona team did four years ago.
“If they go out on top, and that’s a long way away, so who knows — maybe I’ll give him a little something extra,” Rickard said. “Maybe I’ll break out my ring from 2012.” Showalter would be just fine with that. “He should wear it,” Showalter said. “That’s a great accomplishment.”