re: Hardest throwing pitcher we've had at LSU

If Ben McDonald was a HS senior today, he probably wouldn't have made it to LSU. He was a multi-sport HS athlete (with pro baseball potential) and that's not common in today's world. Think about what he said last night...he played basketball through the end of his freshman season at LSU and joined the baseball team late into the season. He was a reliever in his first year. The future #1 pick was playing basketball when the baseball team started practice. That wouldn't happen today. How many HS kids throw 90+ today and how many threw that hard back in the 80's? Jamie Howard was hitting ~93 at STM as a SR. He was in my younger sister's class and my dad paid me to drive a group of them to prom. Jamie was one of them and he sat in the front passenger seat and we were talking about baseball/football. He was drafted in the 2nd round a few months later. Jamie threw very hard but he wasn't a Ben McDonald.

I suspect that Ben would have been throwing consistently in the high 90's at LSU had he focussed on baseball early in HS. I'm not positive on this but I seem to remember him hitting -96 while at LSU and that was over 20 years ago. That's one of the main reasons that he was the #1 pick and POY.

**Also, I was at the Brave/Pirates NLCS and watched Wohlers hit 100+ on several pitches. That's the first I remember hearing the term "effortless gas" and that's how I remember Ben M.