Thomas Smith said he has been putting his Georgia Tech journey into perspective a lot recently and trying to stay rooted and humble.
The reason for it is this: Smith, who 2 1/2 years ago showed up uninvited at the office of Tech baseball coach Danny Hall and asked to walk on, is now the Yellow Jackets’ starting first baseman and cleanup hitter. He is trying to enjoy the moment.
“I mean, you can look at me,” said Smith, who stands an unimposing 6-foot-1 and 177 pounds. “I’m nothing special. I probably don’t strike fear into many pitchers, but I’m just glad it’s all worked out.”
Smith, a junior, bats three spots down from leadoff hitter Daniel Spingola. The same year that Smith nervously asked Hall to walk on, Spingola arrived with status only slightly more elevated, as an invited walk-on. Still, Spingola was so uncertain that he, too, came to Hall’s office at the end of fall practice to ask if he had made the team.
“There’s always that feeling of proving yourself and proving to other people that you’re better than them,” said Spingola, a Marist School graduate. “I think that just keeps me going.”
Tech, which plays its final game of the regular season Saturday at home against South Florida, will play in the ACC tournament and appears to have a good chance to receive an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament. The efforts of Spingola and Smith have played no small part. Going into the week, Spingola led the team in hitting, and ranked 15th in the ACC, with a .317 average. He led the ACC in hits with 69 and triples with seven.
Smith, who primarily has played middle infield his first two seasons, moved to first base and had committed only two errors in 51 starts, entering Friday’s game, all but four at first base. He was hitting .303 at the start of Tech’s series with South Florida. With two home runs in 189 at bats going into Friday’s game, Smith is not the prototypical cleanup hitter, but with a capability to hit for average and avoid striking out, he was the team leader in RBIs (33) before Friday.
With Tech struggling to score runs — they were hitting .287 and averaging 5.7 runs per game after beating Georgia on April 15 to improve to 24-14, but have hit .239, averaged 3.4 runs and gone 6-10 since, entering Friday — the Jackets will continue to look to Spingola and Smith to contribute.
“I just think we need to make things as simple as possible,” said Smith, a mechanical engineering major.
Just that they’re in that role is remarkable. Smith said he didn’t receive any scholarship offers coming out of John Carroll High in Fort Pierce, Fla., and chose to attend Tech (from where his father, David, graduated) purely on academic merits. But he wanted to continue playing, and Hall granted his tryout request.
“I think the biggest thing that stood out was probably his attitude and how hard he worked,” Hall said of Smith’s 2011 fall practice. “His uniform was the dirtiest once practice was over every day and probably more his hustle and his attitude than his ability kind of got our attention.”
Hall planned to redshirt Smith, but he was given a chance when players ahead of him failed to capitalize. Hall gave Smith a start about a third of the way into the season, and Smith never let go, hitting .302 and starting the final 39 games of the season. He fought his way back into the lineup again as a sophomore and stayed in it this season.
Spingola’s development has been slower — he started eight games as a freshman and 21 last year before becoming the everyday center fielder and either the No. 1 or 2 hitter in the lineup.
“This year, it’s just all kind of come together,” said Spingola, an industrial engineering major.
Smith said he is happy and lucky that it all worked out. In that assessment, he’s 1-for-2.
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