DeAndre Smelter, who starred for Georgia Tech at wide receiver after three seasons on the baseball team, returned to baseball this spring. After two encouraging outings as a relief pitcher, however, Smelter decided to give up baseball to concentrate on football.
Smelter informed baseball coach Danny Hall on Thursday morning.
“I think he had talked a lot with his family and just felt like this is the best decision for him to try to, as he said, put all his eggs into the football basket,” Hall said.
Smelter was to spend the spring going back and forth between baseball and football spring practice, which begins March 24. In his first two appearances of the season, Smelter showed signs that the form that got him drafted in the 14th round out of high school was returning. He pitched two innings, with one hit allowed, and his velocity reached 89 mph, according to Hall.
Hall said last week that Smelter was throwing the best he had seen since Smelter arrived at Tech and thought he could improve his velocity over the course of the season. Nonetheless, Hall understood the decision.
“He doesn’t have a bigger fan than me for him to do well in football,” Hall said.
Because of a shoulder injury suffered in high school, Smelter had limited success as a pitcher in his first three seasons. Last spring, he decided to try football, for which he was recruited by Tech, Georgia and other schools as a high schooler. Last season, he became Tech’s most consistent and dangerous wide receiver, catching 21 passes for 345 yards and four touchdowns.
Hall has been through this at least once before, only in the opposite direction. As an assistant coach at Michigan in the mid-1980s, Hall worked with Barry Larkin, who went to Michigan on a football scholarship to play for coach Bo Schembechler. However, Larkin became a baseball star and gave up football, a decision that led him to the baseball Hall of Fame.
The Tech baseball team received a counterbalancing lift, though. Pitcher Matthew Grimes, who was effective as a starter as a freshman in 2011 before an elbow injury as a sophomore sidelined him for a year and a half, will start Sunday for the Yellow Jackets, who begin ACC play with a three-game series that starts Friday at Russ Chandler Stadium against Wake Forest.
It will be his first start since March 2012. Grimes earned the start based on 4 2/3 innings of one-hit relief against Bowling Green State on Sunday. Grimes’ talent is such that the Phillies drafted him in the 31st round in June, despite the fact that he hadn’t pitched in more than a year.
“He’s been through a lot, with really missing almost two full seasons,” Hall said. “To see it come out like it did last weekend, you certainly hope it’s a sign of more good things to come.”
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