12/1/2011 - Angelina College Pitcher McCormack Signs with Baylor For the entirety of the 2011 baseball season, Angelina College pitcher Bobby McCormack served as a pitching-staff workhorse, logging nearly 60 innings on the mound in the eight games he started. For some freshmen, that might have been considered a little much. For McCormack, the experience helped lift him to yet another level. The lefty from Clear Creek High School recently signed a letter of intent with Baylor University, meaning McCormack will launch himself from the notoriously tough opposition of Region XIV to the even-tougher demands of the Big XII. “I think throwing as many innings as I did here as a freshman helped me more than anything else,” McCormack said. “Going up against competition that’s a higher level than what I faced in high school, but maybe not quite as high as in Division I baseball, gave me a chance to learn more about what I can and can’t do. “It doesn’t get much tougher than Big XII baseball, and having another season here at AC is going to be huge.” McCormack was among Region XIV’s pitching leaders from the very beginning of the season. His ERA hovered below 1.00 for more than half the year before settling at a final 1.87 mark. He started eight games and finished with a 5-2 record and a very impressive .95 Walks/Hits Innings Pitched ratio. Opposing hitters struggled to solve his combination of fastballs and breaking stuff, hitting just .178 against him and striking out 61 times in his 57 innings. The numbers alone were plenty good enough to earn McCormack All-Conference honors; they were also good enough to get the attention of scouts from several programs, including Texas Christian University. But McCormack’s decision came down to a measure of familiarity with the Baylor program and campus. “The summer coach I played for a couple of summers played there, and he also went to my high school,” McCormack said. “He and another guy I know went to Clear Creek, and they both went on to play for Baylor. They both spoke very highly of the program and their experiences, so it was pretty much an easy decision once I decided to visit there. “I also visited TCU, and it was awesome, but I felt like I had more of an inside connection through those coaches, and I thought it would make the transition easier.” McCormack noted that pushing hard his freshman season at AC opened up the opportunity to play elsewhere – as well as offering the chance to take a load off his back heading into the Roadrunners’ upcoming 2012 campaign. “If you can just go through and work hard to have a good freshman year, it sets you up for a so much more going into your sophomore year,” McCormack said. “If I hadn’t pitched last season, I wouldn’t have had the chance to sign early, and there would be that extra stress going into this coming season. We had some guys who wanted to sign somewhere, and you could almost see them pressing all season long trying to get the scouts’ attention. It was too much pressure, trying to perform for our team while trying to find a way to keep playing after JUCO. “This will be a huge stress reliever for me in the spring, and one less thing to worry about. Now I can go out and see what we can do to win a tournament.” McCormack’s parents are Debbie and Don McCormack.
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