Present Sense : Choi Takes It One Pitch at a Time and Leads Long Beach Into College World Series

OMAHA —  Try as he might, Daniel Choi could not help getting ahead of himself.

Each time Choi took the mound early in the season for Cal State Long Beach, he was thinking two pitches down the line. He stared in for a sign from his catcher, went through his windup and unleashed fastballs or breaking balls with thoughts of the next pitch on his mind.

Trouble was, Choi’s constant looking ahead caused him to repeatedly fall behind in the count.

Coach Dave Snow finally took Choi aside and gave him some simple but pointed advice: Take it one pitch at a time.

“That was the turning point in the season for me,” Choi said. “Once I started committing to one pitch, everything just clicked.”

Choi’s single-mindedness has resulted in multiple victories. The 6-foot-1, 175-pound sophomore right-hander from Los Angeles leads the nation with 16 victories. He suffered his only defeat against Miami on Feb. 19. Since then, he has won 14 consecutive games.

Choi hopes to continue his winning ways tonight when fourth-seeded Long Beach (43-17) plays fifth-seeded Louisiana State (49-16-1) here in its opening game of the College World Series at Rosenblatt Stadium.

Top-seeded Texas A&M; (52-9) and eighth-seeded Kansas (45-16) are also in Long Beach’s bracket for the eight-team, double-elimination tournament that concludes June 12 with a championship game.

Arizona State (46-18) is seeded second and will begin play Saturday against seventh-seeded Wichita State (55-16). Third-seeded Texas (50-14) plays sixth-seeded Oklahoma State (43-15).

Long Beach is making its third World Series appearance in five years under Snow, who also brought Loyola Marymount to the World Series in 1986. Long Beach has not lost since April 27, a span of 15 games that includes four victories in the East Regional at Tallahassee, Fla.

Long Beach, however, has never won an opening game in Omaha. In 1989, the 49ers lost to Texas and were eliminated by Louisiana State. In 1991, Wichita State beat Long Beach in the opener. Two games later, Creighton sent the 49ers home.

Choi, an All-American, is looking forward to ending the first-game disappointment.

“My job is to hand zeros up there,” said Choi, who has a 2.37 earned-run average and 111 strikeouts in 132 2/3 innings. “Before the season, I didn’t just want to make the starting rotation, I wanted to start the first game and be the No. 1 guy. This is the kind of game where I like to have the ball in my hands.”

Choi, who is of Korean descent, is the first Asian-American pitcher to dominate in Division I since Derek Tatsuno, who won 20 games for the University of Hawaii in 1979 and led the nation in strikeouts in 1977, ’78 and ’79.

“There aren’t a lot of Asian-Americans playing college ball or in the pros, so I know I’m unique in that way,” Choi said. “But I don’t really look at myself as a role model for any particular group. I’m just a ballplayer.”

Choi’s road to Long Beach began after he helped Fairfax High win the City Section 3-A championship in 1990. Choi accepted a scholarship to Cal State Northridge, but struggled during fall workouts because of injuries. He spent the 1991 season as a redshirt and contemplated quitting the sport.

“I doubted myself,” he said. “I had tendinitis in my elbow and I thought, ‘The heck with it. I’ll concentrate on academics.’ ”

Choi transferred to Los Angeles City College in the fall of 1991 and compiled a 4-3 record during the 1992 season. Last summer, he went 8-2 in the Alaskan collegiate league and pitched in the National Baseball Congress World Series at Wichita, Kan.

Oklahoma and virtually every Southland Division I school offered Choi a partial or full scholarship. He chose Long Beach for the opportunity to work with Snow, who immediately recognized Choi’s talent and gradually discovered his penchant for getting ahead of himself.

“Looking back, I think some of his early control problems were caused by a hesitancy as to whether or not he was throwing the pitch he really felt like throwing,” Snow said. “I told him to put some trust and commitment into the pitches that I called for. Once he did that, the qualities of his performances took off to another level.”

Choi is 8-1 against ranked teams, including a 4-1 complete-game victory over host Florida State in the winner’s bracket final of the regional. Snow had gambled and started seldom-used Brian Fontes (2-0) in the regional opener against Central Florida, and Mike Fontana (9-3) in the second game against Mississippi State.

Snow, however, said it would be foolish to think the same kind of gamble would pay off here.

Louisiana State, the 1992 champion, is led by All-American second baseman Todd Walker, who is batting .398 with 19 home runs and 90 runs batted in. Right-hander Brett Laxton is 11-1 with a 1.98 ERA. Left-hander Mike Sirotka is 10-5 with a 1.93 ERA.

Right-fielder Kevin Curtis is Long Beach’s top hitter at .370 with 10 homers and 53 RBIs. First baseman John Swanson is batting .345 and was named most valuable player of the regional after hitting three homers in four games.

“I’ve never had a team come in here with as much momentum as this one,” Snow said. “It has demonstrated more mental toughness than any I’ve had at Long Beach. Right now, we’re in a good frame of mind.”

Choi said he will be thinking about only one thing when he takes the mound tonight.

“The key for me is to keep myself focused on each pitch,” he said. “If I do that, set a good tempo and give our guys a chance to swing the bat, I don’t think we can be beat.”