by Joey Papania
LSUsports.net
BATON ROUGE — The LSU baseball team is halfway through the 2000 season and playing their best baseball to date. Senior captain Blair Barbier has proven to be a consistent leader for this year’s club in their quest for yet another National Title.
Barbier was an All-Metro and All-State baseball player his senior year at Brother Martin High School in New Orleans. The four-year high school letterman also led the Crusaders to the Class 5A state title and hit .458 with six homeruns in 1996. When the time came to choose a college, there was little uncertainty as to where Barbier would continue his success.
“There was no doubt (I wanted to attend LSU),” Barbier said. “When I was recruited in my sophomore year of high school, I knew I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I’d seen the tradition. I’d seen LSU win National Championships. It was the only place I wanted to play.”
Before the start of the 1997 season, Barbier worked out as a shortstop. But the emergence of All-American Brandon Larson forced him to third and then to second base where he played in 65 games as a freshman. Barbier batted .353 for the season and hit 15 homeruns, the highest homerun total for a freshman in LSU baseball history. The Tigers would collect their fourth National Title that year, and Barbier would be named a 1997 Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American.
The following season, the Harvey, Louisiana native struggled at the plate, watching his batting average for the year dip below .250. He was then moved to third base during the SEC Tournament after playing the entire regular season as the Tiger’s second sacker. Determined not to become a victim of what many in the baseball world refer to as the “sophomore slump”, Barbier raised his game in the NCAA South II Regional hitting .375.
Last season Barbier was one of only two Tigers to start all 66 games and raised his batting average from the previous year 46 points to .293. He finished the 1999 season among the Top 10 in six career categories. Now he has entered his fourth season at LSU as the Tiger’s captain, an honor that he has rightly earned.
“You have to wait your turn around here,” Barbier explained. “You won’t be the main guy when you first arrive here. There are going to be guys you can learn from because they’ve been to Omaha and they’ve played in the conference and they know what it’s like. When you first get here you don’t know. But as time goes on you inherit that leadership role and help the younger guys realize what’s expected.”
What’s expected in nothing short of a trip to Omaha. Almost every team in the nation year-in and year-out targets the LSU baseball program. So what does it take to get ready for the challenges ahead?
“To play hard, to be consistent and to get back to playing well everyday. That has to come from hard work,” Barbier said. “Coach Turtle Thomas has done a great job of instilling a great work ethic within the team and making sure we feel like we have earned and deserve the right to play well and win.”
Support has not only come from the coaching staff for Barbier. A large following of the his family can be seen at just about every game, home or away.
“My mom has seven brothers who make most of the games from New Orleans. They also make a lot of road trips,” Barbier said. “I also have a lot of family on my dad’s side, two or three that make every game. We always have a large following and they love to party and tailgate. They’re having a good time, and I’m having a good time. It’s just a lot of fun.
“My dad has been the biggest influence I’ve had as far as instilling the right attitude and the right thing to do. He’s always been there through the tough times, through the bad times. So has my mom. So has my whole family.”
The Barbier family was in Omaha in 1997 to see the Tigers capture their fourth title in the ’90s. And hopefully they will be there to witness LSU’s first title in this decade. But there is still plenty of baseball to be played this season. The Tigers need to take each game one at a time, and no one understands that better than this year’s captain.
“It’s still early. We are just getting to the halfway point of the season. We’re playing well and we just have to be consistent with that,” Barbier explained. “If we do that, if we play our best, then our chances of getting to Omaha will look good. It’s still a long way away and we still have a long way to go. We have to continue to get better and play our best and then worry about getting to the championship.”