STARKVILLE — Adam Frazier and his teammates were told their experience this summer with the Team USA baseball team would be the perfect preparation for life as a professional player.
Mississippi State University’s standout leadoff hitter and shortstop disagrees after he spent a month wearing the red, white, and blue for the U.S. collegiate summer national team.
“I just kept thinking, ‘Yeah, but minor league teams eventually play home games,’ ” Frazier said. “That’s the one thing I never thought about until I experienced it with Team USA. The national team never plays any true home games.”
After competing in a series of exhibition games and in tournaments across the U.S. and overseas against the world’s top talent, Frazier said the experience is “something I’ll cherish and never take for granted” despite hitting 1-for-17 (.056) and being a backup infielder.
“I think after the Southeastern Conference tournament and then NCAA Regionals, I was just exhausted mentally and physically before this trip,” Frazier said.
Team USA earned the bronze medal Sunday in the international Honibal Week tournament after defeating the host Netherlands 4-3.
“It was a fun summer,” Team USA manager and current University of Tennessee coach Dave Serrano said. “We didn’t get the medal we wanted to, but we will walk out of this stadium proud with a medal around our necks. We were only together for 30 days, but the relationships built during those 30 days will last a lifetime.”
Frazier said a major difference in the games was transitioning from aluminum bats to wood bats in less than a week. He said the change forced a depleted Team USA offense to rely on stellar pitching and defense to win games.
Frazier got a hit in his first game and then went hitless the rest of the month. He had just two other occasions when he hit the ball out of the infield.
“I don’t think I was the only one in the camp that was frustrated with how they did at the plate,” Frazier said. “I think we all rode our pitching all month long, and that’s why we didn’t win gold.”
However, Frazier has no regrets about playing for Team USA, and said he would do the experience again “in a second.”
“I said to myself, ‘I’m just as good as anybody on this team and that’s why they wanted me to play for them,’ ” Frazier said. “It was a big confidence boost to be thought of as one of the best in my class in the country, just like (MSU) coach (John) Cohen said it would be.”
Frazier said he enjoyed the chance to travel to Cuba to play five games in five days against Cuba’s Under-18 National team in Havana.
“All of the guys on the team would have their heads on a swivel looking at the buildings on the ride every day from the hotel to the ballpark,” Frazier said. “What was so strange was they haven’t really built anything new since Castro took over the country, so it felt like a Third World place to live.”
Frazier described the experience of being in Cuba and in the Netherlands as a “rock star atmosphere” among the local residents because they were playing for Team USA.
“What was so cool is the baseball fans in the community were so knowledgeable and passionate about baseball that we would get recognized after games when we’d go sightseeing,” Frazier said. “Just attempting to communicate with them after they would come up for autographs and pictures was pretty cool.”
Frazier was the first MSU player to play for Team USA since right-handed pitcher Matt Ginter in 1998. First baseman Will Clark (1984), infielder Brad Hildreth (1986), left-handed pitcher B.J. Wallace (1992), and pitcher Carlton Loewer (1993) also were selected.
“I know what type of honor it was for me to put on a Team USA jersey as a coach,” said Cohen, who was a Team USA assistant coach in 2005. “Adam will remember this as a once-in-a-lifetime experience and tell people about this the rest of his life.”
Now that he is back in the U.S. for the time in more than 30 days, Frazier said he will relax before starting the fall semester at MSU.
“I will get a chance to chill out and maybe just do some light lifting before starting school again in about a week or so,” Frazier said. “It’s just about getting used to the time change being back in the home country again.”
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