Small college notes: Archie Gilbert honored by CSU East Bay
- May 15, 2010
By Matt Schwab
Bay Area News Group Sports Writer
Archie Gilbert wished he could have been there for his induction into the 麻豆传媒社区入口 Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday night, but his big league dream got in the way.
The former Pioneers baseball flash is a center fielder for the Double-A Midland RockHounds, the A's Double-A affiliate in the Texas League. Gilbert was hitting.256 with 23 RBIs for Midland entering its Saturday doubleheader with the San Antonio Missions, a schedule created when Friday's contest was rained out.
Talk about creating a scheduling conflict. About 50 of Gilbert's friends and family planned to attend the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. But on Friday morning, no one knew if Archie would join them. The family even planned to have a limousine ready to whisk him to the ceremony from the Oakland International Airport.
But the five-year pro, an undrafted free agent who went to James Logan High, couldn't justify leaving his club. Gilbert believes he could get a call-up to the A's this year and doesn't want to mess up that chance.
"I really didn't ask if I could could attend (the ceremony)," Gilbert said, "But I told the coach about it. He said, 'Yeah, you've got things to do out here.' Pretty much (he was saying), 'Do you want to get to the big leagues or do you want to go to the Hall of Fame (ceremony)?' I thought I'd stay out here and get the work in."
Always a game-changer, Gilbert was a spectacular and consistent player from 2002-05 at what was then Cal State Hayward. Gilbert had a school-record 36-game hitting streak during his junior year and holds the Pioneers' career marks for runs, hits, RBIs, doubles and triples. His career batting average was .358.
"I think he was very focused on what he wanted to do," Pioneers coach Dirk Morrison said. "He always had the desire to play professional baseball like he's doing now. He trained hard. He worked on his game, and he was able to raise his level when the game was on the line. ... There was no let up in the guy, and that's hard to do, especially in a game like baseball where there's breaks in between pitches and things like that."
Morrison attended some of Gilbert's games with the Single-A Stockton Ports in 2008, where they had a bobblehead day for Gilbert, making 1,000 with his likeness. That season ended in spectacular fashion.
"I got to see his run when he made MVP of the Cal League championship series, so that was exciting," Morrison said of '08, when Gilbert batted over .600 in the postseason and drove in eight runs over the four-game championship series.
Morrison thought Gilbert did enough during his spectacular junior season to get drafted by a major league club, but it wasn't to be. Gilbert, who may have been turned aside because of his 5-foot-8 height, simply reset his goals and followed with a strong senior season.
Gilbert has returned home the past two years to sign autographs at his old school, Searles Elementary in Union City. His mom, Archie, who shares his first name, said Gilbert also was a star BMX bike rider as a child.