A Few Minutes With Eric Byrnes
Published June 13, 1999
Section: Sports
Edition(s): All, Page: C-5
By: Brian VanderBeek, Bee staff writer
Eric Byrnes was a high school catcher and infielder who made his mark in college as an outfielder. Growing up in Woodside, he was earmarked to play baseball at Stanford before a last-minute switch sent him packing for UCLA. He was raised a devout fan of the San Francisco Giants, but finds himself playing professionally for the other Bay Area organization.
And now he's an all-star caliber left fielder for the Modesto A's who somehow was not selected to the midseason all-star game.
A 1994 graduate of St. Francis High in Mountain View, Byrnes was an eighth-round pick of Oakland in the 1998 draft, and came out of college swinging. He hit .314 in 42 games in Southern Oregon, then spent the final month of the season in Visalia, where he hit .426 with four homers and 21 RBIs in 29 games.
Despite being in the top 10 in the California League this season in batting average, hits, runs and doubles, Byrnes will get a three-day vacation following next Sunday's first-half finale against Visalia instead of a trip to Lake Elsinore for the all-star game.
Were you upset about being left off the all-star team?
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. But the only things I can expect are the things I can do. I don't expect anything from anybody else -- from the A's, from the California League, from the voters. It did bother me and I was upset about it. Now, I can look as it as happening for a reason. It will give me a little more motivation to go out in the second half and prove that I should have been on the all-star team.
It also gives you three days off.
It gives me a chance to go to Lake Tahoe for three days. Exactly.
Did you sit down and compare your stats with the outfielders who made the team?
No. I do know that until the last few games I was among the leaders in just about every category. That's what I pride myself on -- to do everything well, to be the complete player. I think the coaches overlooked defensive ability.
It's apparent you really like to throw the ball.
I love to throw and I pride myself on that. I don't have the best arm in the world, but I pride myself on being rid of it quick and being accurate. If you do both of those things, you get assists. To me, an outfield assist is as gratifying as hitting a home run.
Knowing what you know now about professional baseball, if you had to decide again whether to turn pro right out of high school or go to college, what would you do?
As far as just pure baseball, I've learned more about baseball in one professional year than I learned in all the previous years. I'm in the best organization in baseball in the way they handle players. Do I recommend that anybody sign out of high school? No. Not to anybody. And not unless there's a huge chunk of money, like at least more than a million dollars.
That's how much it is worth, in your mind, to get the degree, to go through the social development.
It's for life. As much as we like to think at 18 years old that baseball is life, there's more to life than that. I almost feel sorry for some of the guys who missed out on the college experience. It's something they chose to do and I'm not knocking it. But I know what I learned through college -- about the camaraderie of the college team, about how to handle yourself as an individual, about living on your own for the first time, about getting an education. I can communicate with the Dominican players on this team, which I wouldn't have been able to if I hadn't gone to school. There are so many advantages to college.
You had another decision. You chose UCLA instead of staying home and going to Stanford.
I was all set to go to Stanford. They told me to get a certain GPA, and I did better than that. They told me to get a certain SAT score, and I did better than that. I thought it was going to happen from talking with (Stanford head coach) Mark Marquess, with my high school baseball coach, and from taking with my high school counselor, who was the wife of Mark Marquess. This is a tight, little circle here. Stanford was the only thing on my mind, and it's really special when a local kid goes to Stanford. The night before the early signing date in November, they called and told me they couldn't get me in. I decided that if they couldn't get me in, then maybe Stanford wasn't for me. I called (coach) Gary Adams at UCLA and told him I wanted to sign there.
Did you grow up a Giants fan or an A's fan?
Giants. Diehard. Still love the Giants. Obviously, that passion is dwindling a little now. Now that I play in the A's organization, I feel a bit more sympathy and want to show that the A's are every bit as good or maybe even a bit better.
So which team did you root for in the interleague series?
I rooted for the A's. The Giants have this mystique about them. They think that since they have a little more money and a larger fan base, that they have a little more clout in the Bay Area than the A's. So I wanted the A's to flex their muscles a little bit. I like the A's and their philosophy and what they're trying to do with their young players.
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