BATON ROUGE – An inspirational keynote address delivered by LSU all-America first baseman Dr. Eddy Furniss highlighted the LSU Baseball First Pitch Banquet Thursday night at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
The banquet is an annual event held each February to signify the start of the college baseball season. The members of the Tigers’ 2011 team were introduced at the start of the banquet, which also featured remarks by coach Paul Mainieri and vice chancellor/director of athletics Joe Alleva.
Freshman catcher Ty Ross, sophomore outfielder Mason Katz, junior shortstop Austin Nola and senior pitcher Daniel Bradshaw addressed the crowd of over 700 people, providing an inside look at the 2011 squad. LSU opens the season at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 18 when the Tigers plays host to Wake Forest in Alex Box Stadium.
Furniss, who played at LSU from 1995-98, was inducted on July 1 into the College Baseball Hall of Fame at the United Spirit Arena in Lubbock, Texas. A family medicine physician in his hometown of Nacogdoches, Texas, he joined former Tigers Todd Walker (2009), Ben McDonald (2008) and coach Skip Bertman (2006) in the College Baseball Hall of Fame.
“More than anything else, playing baseball at LSU taught me to perform under pressure, whatever the task may be,” Furniss said. “If you can stand alone on the field with the hopes of 7,000 people in the stands – along with countless people watching on TV and listening on the radio — riding on your next swing, catch, hit, or pitch, you know you can pretty much do anything.”
Furniss enjoyed one of the best four-season stretches in college baseball history. Though it has been 13 years since his final collegiate game, Furniss is still the Southeastern Conference all-time leader in hits (352), home runs (80), RBI (308), doubles, (87) and total bases (689). In the NCAA record book, he finished his career No. 3 all-time in total bases, No. 4 in home runs and doubles, and No. 5 in RBI.
Furniss, a three-time Academic All-American as a zoology major, helped lead LSU to NCAA championships in 1996 and 1997, and he received the 1998 Dick Howser Trophy as college baseball’s most outstanding player. He hit .403 in ’98 with 27 doubles, three triples, 28 homers, 85 runs and 76 RBI, earning First-Team All-America and All-SEC honors. Furniss earned All-America recognition in each of his final three seasons, and he was voted the 1996 SEC Player of the Year.
Furniss, a 2007 LSU Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, was selected in the fourth round of the 1998 Major League Draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates and played five seasons in the minor leagues before retiring to concentrate on a career in medicine.
Bertman, who introduced Furniss at the banquet, said his star first baseman was a very gifted player and a model student-athlete.
“No one in my tenure at LSU played as well as Eddy over a four-year period,” Bertman said. “He truly is one of the best LSU has ever produced. His batting average over four years was magnificent and, of course, he was one of the primary reasons we won back-to-back national championships (in 1996 and 1997). Eddy’s career was one of the greatest, not just in baseball, but in any sport in LSU history.”
“I absolutely would not have been the baseball player I was without Coach Bertman drawing every ounce of ability out of me,” Furniss said. “I really think that is true for all the players that have been through the program under his coaching. He has a gift to know when he can push a player, when young men need a stern hand to get back on track, and the ones that need a kind word at the right moment to make it through a downturn.”