BATON ROUGE — LSU left-hander Charlie Furbush has been named to the preseason watch list for the 2007 Roger Clemens Award, given annually to the college baseball pitcher of the year.
Furbush, a junior from South Portland, Maine, is one of 62 pitchers on the list, including 11 who earned all-America recognition in 2006.
Previous winners of the Roger Clemens Award were Jered Weaver of Long Beach State in 2004, Luke Hochevar of Tennessee in 2005 and Andrew Miller of North Carolina last season.
Furbush, who transferred to LSU this fall from Saint Joseph’s College of Maine, was named the 2006 North Atlantic Conference Player of the Year, as he posted a 10-1 mark and a 2.89 ERA in 74.2 innings with 22 walks and 115 strikeouts. He was also voted the NCAA Division III New England Pitcher of the Year.
The 6-4, 204-pound southpaw pitched brilliantly this summer in the Cape Cod League, a wooden-bat league featuring the nation’s best collegiate players. He was honored with the league’s John Claffey New England Top Prospect Award after recording a 3-2 mark with a 1.83 ERA for the Hyannis Mets.
Furbush worked 54 innings for Hyannis, recording 13 walks and 50 strikeouts. He fired a no-hitter with 12 strikeouts to defeat the Bourne Braves, and he worked 8.1 innings in a win over the top team in the league, the Cotuit Kettleers.
The Roger Clemens Award is administered by the Greater Houston Baseball Association and is named after the future Hall of Fame pitcher. Clemens began his march to stardom while leading Texas to the College World Series title in 1983. As a major leaguer, he has won 348 games, fanned more than 4,600 hitters and received seven Cy Young Awards while pitching for the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees and Houston Astros.
The 2007 Roger Clemens Award will be presented at a gala dinner in Houston next July.