The 2012 baseball season didn’t exactly finish the way Tom Jameson had hoped.
The University of Nevada senior starting pitcher thought he had done enough to impress major league scouts a year ago, going 7-2 with a 2.55 earned run average and helping the Wolf Pack win the Western Athletic Conference regular season championship.
The major league scouts thought otherwise, ignoring him throughout the 50-round amateur draft last June. So Jameson is back on the mound for the Pack this season.
“It was kind of a tough deal,” the Reno High graduate said.
Jameson, whose father Rich pitched for the Wolf Pack in the 1970s, allowed five runs and six hits in six innings against Kansas last weekend in his first start of the season. He also did not strike out a hitter, a reminder once again of why he likely was not drafted last June.
“I talked to a few teams and they just said I don’t strike out enough guys,” the 6-foot-7 Jameson said. “When it comes down to drafting a guy, that is one of the things they look at.”
Jameson, who started the second game of Saturday's double header against Northern Illinois, admits the draft snub bothered him at the time.
“It kind of took a toll,” he said. “But I just used it to push me to work harder.”
Jameson, though, didn’t feel that he had to change himself as a pitcher.
“I can’t try to go out there and strike everybody out,” he said. “That’s not me. I want to get guys to hit ground balls. I can’t go too far away from the things that made me successful. I want ground balls and get guys to hit into double plays.”
