Wake Forest Athletics News
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Gold Rush: Top of the World
Aug. 22, 2002 By Jay Reddick It didn't take long for Kyle Sleeth to get comfortable this summer. Sure, he traveled to the Netherlands and Italy after never having left North America before. But Wake Forest's best pitcher soon found himself in a very familiar position with Team USA baseball: staff ace. Sleeth won his first seven starts with the USA Baseball team this summer, compiling an 1.23 earned-run average. He has struck out 52 men, while allowing just 30 hits, in 51 1/3 innings through Aug. 5. Sleeth said the pressure involved in being the best of the best has made him a better pitcher, even better than the 14-0 hurler he was for Wake Forest in the spring. "I have stepped up my performance a little and that is due to the positive competition here," Sleeth wrote in an e-mail from Sicily, where Team USA was competing in the World University Baseball Championships. "It is a team made up of aces from other teams, and everyone is competing for that ace title. I think that that pushes everyone to be better than they were coming into tryouts." That improvement has been noticed by American scouts. A recent listing by Baseball America ranked Sleeth, a rising junior, as the No. 4 prospect for the 2003 draft. Sleeth knows he'll have to address that one day, but he's putting it off as long as he can. "I am trying not to think of that stuff at all, just to keep that extra pressure off my shoulders," Sleeth said. "If I just go out every day and pitch my game, the rest will take care of itself." Need evidence of Sleeth's talent? The numbers don't lie. The most amazing thing about his run of success with Team USA is that since March 25, 2001, with four different teams behind him, Sleeth's record is 35-1. His only loss through those nearly 17 months, which includes games with two Wake Forest teams and two summer squads, came last summer against the Cotuit Kettleers in the Cape Cod League. Making it to Team USA was another victory of sorts. Sleeth was one of 35 players invited to a four-day tryout camp in Tucson, Ariz., June 20-24. On the last day, the team was cut to 22 men, and Sleeth had his bags packed for a long summer. "I didn't really know what to expect going into the tryout,"Sleeth wrote, "except I knew I had to throw well to make the team because of the quality of players that were there. It was fun meeting new people and making what have now become close friends of mine." The team went on a barnstorming tour of America, playing against a Japanese touring squad and some American local pro and semi-pro teams for almost a month. Sleeth had four dominant wins on that tour. Then, like a Price is Right contestant redeeming a showcase, it was off to Haarlem, the Netherlands, for 10 days of fun in the sun...and, oh yeah, baseball. On July 19, Sleeth opened Team USA's play at Haarlem Baseball Week with a two-hit shutout of Chinese Taipei. He struck out nine batters and allowed only one man to reach third base. On the 28th, he pitched the Americans to a 5-4 victory over the host Dutch in the championship game. Even though that was arguably his least impressive performance of the summer, his most lasting memory comes from that day, during the postgame celebration. "Our national anthem was being played and red, white and blue confetti was being shot all over the field," Sleeth wrote. "It was a feeling that I will remember for the rest of my life." The final stop is Sicily, and Sleeth continued his mastery there with a seven-inning stint, allowing three hits and one unearned run, in a victory over Canada on Aug. 4. The event continues through Aug. 11, and then Sleeth's long, successful summer will be over. He leaves with plenty of memories, plenty of stamps on his passport and plenty of victory notches in his belt. "Before this summer, the only place I have been out of the country was to Mexico," he wrote. "I have never experienced how it is in other countries, but it has been great seeing all the sites and playing tourist for a while...And I have plenty of stories from this summer, too many to tell." |