Reno’s Wallace carries on family tradition

Rob Miech

Wednesday, July 12, 2006 | 7:19 a.m.

Before the biggest baseball game of his life, Oregon State freshman and Reno native John Wallace sat in the dugout and sent his mom a text message on her cell phone.

The Beavers stood on the brink of elimination against North Carolina in the College World Series last month. Wallace casually zipped "Happy Birthday" to Vicki Wallace's seat in the stands at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Neb.

"I didn't get her anything, and she said, 'I don't want anything. I just want a win,' " Wallace said. "Before the game, I wrote her, 'We'll do it. Happy Birthday!'

"Then I wrote to her afterward. 'Happy Birthday! There's your birthday present!' "

Wallace went 3-for-4 and scored a run in the Beavers' 11-7 victory against the Tar Heels to force a deciding Game 3. The next day in the rubber game, he scored the tying run, and Oregon State scored again in the eighth inning to win its first baseball championship.

"We're just thrilled," Vicki Wallace said. "Obviously, he got a lot more opportunities than he or we expected as a freshman. But we're proud of him, too, because he did the job."

Injuries created those opportunities for Wallace. He started 31 of 47 games during his rookie season. Usually batting second, he hit .326, fifth best on the 50-16 Beavers.

"It's what you dream about," said the 19-year-old right fielder. "It's what every collegiate baseball player wants to do."

After Omaha, Wallace spent only a few days at home in Reno. He packed his spikes and headed to Oahu, where OSU pitching coach Dan Spencer had arranged for him to play for the Waikiki Surfers in an amateur wooden-bat league. Top collegiate players use these summer leagues to make the jump from the aluminum bats to the less-forgiving wooden bats used in the pros.

Wallace, who joined the Surfers halfway through their 34-game schedule, went 0-for-7 in his first two games before collecting two hits Friday.

"It's not too bad," he said of spending about a month in Hawaii after winning a title in his first year in college.

Sports excellence seems to flow in Wallace's genes. His father, Mike, played baseball at UNR and was drafted by the San Francisco Giants. An uncle, Steve Senini, played football at UNR and then for the Denver Broncos and Cleveland Browns. Wallace's maternal great-grandfather, Joyner Clifford White, played on the Detroit Tigers' World Series teams during the 1930s.

White died at the age of 77, on Oct. 9, 1986, the same day that John Wallace was born.

"It is a little bit weird, thinking that happened, what with his history and with his baseball career," Wallace said. "That he died on the day I was born, it's almost like he passed along the torch that day."

White, known as "Jo-Jo," batted left-handed and threw right-handed, just like John Wallace. White had a keen eye, collecting more walks than strikeouts over his nine-year career in the major leagues. He also had wheels, leading the Tigers in stolen bases during their World Series seasons of 1934 and 1935. Detroit lost the title to St. Louis in a rousing seven-game series in '34, but defeated the Chicago Cubs in six games for the crown the following season.

But White's biggest claim to sporting fame probably came from the advice he gave while managing the Cleveland Indians' farm team in Keokuk, Iowa, in 1954. He told a young Roger Maris to swing for the fences.

"You're big and you've got power," White recommended to Maris. "Pull that ball to right field and see what happens."

Two trades later, Maris was a New York Yankee when he broke Babe Ruth's 34-year-old home-run record in 1961. Maris' 61 homers stood until Mark McGwire belted 70 in 1998.

"That's pretty awesome," Wallace said. "It's hard to even imagine that he had a part in that. I didn't know that. It's pretty cool."