COMMENTARY

Toops known to Arkansas fans before The Bachelorette

Hey, babe. Do you know I played professional baseball?

“Oh, really?,” she whispers as her eyes flutter while looking deeply into his eyes. “You’re so amazing.”

Yes, my darling, and I hit a grand slam in college to win a big game for our team.

Sounds like a pickup line but it’s one Brady Toops can truthfully use at any time if he chooses. In fact, I think he has as a contestant on The Bachelorette, a hit reality TV series I can proudly say I’ve never watched.

But I did watch Brady Toops for three years when he played baseball at Arkansas from 2002-2004. Known mostly as a defensive catcher, Toops provided one of the biggest moments in Arkansas baseball history when he hit a two-out, ninth-inning grand slam against Wichita State in the Fayetteville Regional in 2004.

Wichita State led 9-6 in the ninth inning when Clay Goodwin and Casey Rowlett started Arkansas’ rally with one-out singles. Haas Pratt beat out an infield hit with two outs to score Rowlett, then Danny Hamblin walked to load the bases. That brought up Toops, who hit his fourth home run and Arkansas’ first grand slam of the season.

The dramatic home run to left field breathed new life into the Razorbacks, who beat Wichita State in a second game and eventually advanced to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., for the first time since 1989.

“That day was the greatest moment I ever had on a baseball field,” said Rowlett, who later played five years in the St. Louis Cardinals’ organization. “I thought Toops popped up to left field and the game and season was over. But the ball kept carrying and carrying. We were a team picked to finish dead last in the SEC that year and we made it to Omaha. We were just a bunch of dirt bags who played hard.”

Toops, who also played professionally in the Cardinals’ organization, has evolved into much more than a baseball dirt bag. He’s a singer-songwriter in the Christian/Gospel genre and, apparently, a ladies’ man of the highest order. He voluntarily bowed out from The Bachelorette last week to pursue another love interest in Nashville, Tenn., where he now lives.

Whatever Toops accomplishes in music or romance, he’ll long be remembered by Arkansas sports fans for his grand slam that rescued the Razorbacks from elimination. Arkansas beat Wichita State 11-9 and 4-3 in back-to-back games after falling into the loser’s bracket with a 4-3 defeat to the Shockers.

“Going in the ninth, especially with two outs, it was almost a foregone conclusion we were going to lose,” former Arkansas pitcher Charley Boyce said while recalling Toops’ home run. “I was standing at the end of the dugout with Jay Sawatski and thinking we still had a good season and won the SEC after everybody picked us last. Then, before you know it, Brady hits the home run and changes everything.”

Over 8,000 fans who attended the game likely remember where they stood when Stoops’ grand slam sent Razorback fans into a frenzy. From the pressbox, former sports writer Jerry L. Reed raised the roof with his twist “Toops!, there it is. Toops!, there it is,” on a popular rap song by Tag Team.

Toops wasn’t the only hero that Sunday in 2004. Boyce came back and pitched the second game after he helped beat the Shockers less than 24 hours earlier. In two games, the right-hander from Tulsa pitched 14 1/3 innings and threw 203 pitches.

That amount of work drew criticism from Wichita State coach Gene Stephenson, who said he wouldn’t have let Boyce pitch that much with so little rest. Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn defended his decision minutes later and, basically, told Stephenson he’d coach his team the way he wanted.

“I was in the same building for the press conference and waiting with Van Horn behind a curtain they had set up,” Boyce said. “When Stephenson said that, I looked at Van Horn and he looked at me. I just told him ‘don’t worry about it.’ I wanted to pitch that second game and there was no way I was coming out unless I had to.”

Boyce lives in Springdale and he’s owner and operator of Pascal Heating and Air, a company he bought in 2012 Rowlett, who lives in Rogers, is an employee with the company and both former Razorbacks follow the current Arkansas team whenever their busy schedules allow.

As for Toops and The Bachelorette romantic series?

“I don’t watch it,” Boyce said. “My wife records it and watches it when I’m not around.”

Rick Fires can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter@NWARick.

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