| PING!BASEBALL SPOTLIGHT PLAYER
Conor Gillaspie
Wichita State Shockers |
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As the 2008 MLB draft approaches it would
be interesting to see how many hits the website of a thirteen
year old boy in Hartselle, Alabama gets. The reason the paintball
loving/football playing teen could have a surge in traffic
this spring is because he shares the name of one of the nation’s
most exciting and talented professional prospects in Wichita
State’s Conor Gillaspie. With two slips of the keyboard
one would be visiting the
homepage of little Connor Gillespie (with two N’s
in the first name and an E instead of an A in the last), the
small southern town native who enjoys sports and girl watching,
rather than keeping up to date on the reigning Cape Cod League
MVP and batting champ whose line-drive stroke should make
him an early round selection next month.
 Ever
since Gillaspie arrived on the Wichita State campus he’s
played like a future major leaguer. His freshman year, the
third baseman with soft, steady hands hit .352 with 18 doubles,
three triples, seven home runs, 67 RBI and five stolen bases
for the Shockers. He was named to the Missouri Valley All
Conference team and was conferred as a first team Freshman
All-American by Collegiate Baseball as well. He was named
first team all-Valley again as a sophomore when he hit .325
with 55 runs, 24 doubles, four triples, six home runs, 63
RBI and 12 stolen bases to lead the MVC regular season champs.
He led the Valley in hits, RBI, doubles and total bases and
was third in the league in runs.
Over the summer his stock soared after a
successful season playing for the Falmouth Commodores in the
Cape Cod League. He batted a league-best .345 in the traditionally
pitching friendly league to capture the CCL batting crown
and earned the Thurman Munson Award as the league’s
best hitter as he led the league in extra-base hits (21) and
slugging percentage (.673), was second in both doubles (12),
and on-base percentage (.448) and tied for fourth in home
runs (7). The honor put him in company of other Munson Award
recipients such as MLB All-Stars Jason Varitek and Lance Berkman
and solidified Gillaspie as a top pro prospect.
This season Gillaspie, who is the son of
former Mississippi State All American outfielder and College
World Series star, Mark Gillaspie, has continued to blister
the horsehide. His batting average has consistently been above
or around .400 all season and he has amassed a .661 slugging
percentage due to his 11 doubles, eight triples and six homeruns.
He’s also tore up the basepaths, swiping thirteen bags
in fifteen attempts. Acclaimed as an excellent contact hitter,
Gillaspie has only struck out seventeen times while being
issued 30 walks to put his on base percentage at .488.
Despite batting over .500 his junior and
senior seasons and being named to All-Metro and All-State
teams at Millard North High School in Omaha, Nebraska, Gillaspie
wasn’t offered enough financial aid to allow him to
attend his father’s alma mater of Mississippi State.
He was also recruited by the hometown Creighton club, but
the cost of an education at the private university nixed those
plans as well. The Shockers were the only other school with
enough foresight to aggressively pursue Gillaspie, making
his decision to don gold and black an easy one. However if
he had it his way, he’s be wearing blaze orange instead.
As accomplished as he is at baseball, Gillaspie’s first
love is hunting; he’d rather have a shotgun in hand
rather than a bat.
“I die for pheasant.” Gillaspie
proclaimed when asked about hunting, “I will hunt pheasant
every day, all day in 0’ degree weather.”
As further testament to his affection for
the sport, when asked to come up with his own six
word memoir, the tale of Conor Gillaspie to date has nothing
to do with baseball. Instead his half dozen worded biography
simply states, “Pheasant hunting in South Dakota rocks.”
Before he can get back to the Dakota plains,
Gillaspie and the Shockers have unfinished business on the
diamond. The Shockers lost a tighter than tight Super Regional
match up last year against UC Irvine last spring which prevented
Wichita State from returning to the College World Series for
the first time since 1996. Currently ranked in the top twenty,
WSU is battling for first in an increasing competitive Missouri
Valley schedule and preparing for the extended postseason.
If Gillaspie can continue to swing a hot bat his last games
for the Shockers could be played in front of a home crowd
– not that of his adoptive home in Eck Stadium in Wichita,
but back in Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, playing in the College
World Series.
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