LONG BEACH, Calif. – When you play for a baseball program so steeped in tradition that the team even has its own nickname – the Dirtbags – it’s nearly impossible to escape comparisons of past players.
For shortstops, take away the word nearly. Long Beach State used to have another nickname, “Shortstop U.” From Bobby Crosby to Troy Tulowitzki, to Even Longoria and Danny Espinosa, it is, in fact, impossible to not man the middle infield without drawing some sort of comparison to a shortstop of the Dirtbag teams past.
Garrett Hampson isn’t trying to be compared to any of them but of course, he’s heard what people say. He’s built like Espi but moves like Tulo. He has shades of Crosby with Longoria’s on-base percentage.
“I think that the allure of it is really neat from the outside when you’re getting recruited, especially at that particular position because of the history,” Long Beach State coach Troy Buckley said. “The security of the player would determine how he handles it once he decides to come here, once we all agree that he’s coming here.”
Hampson is more than secure enough to assure everyone that he is, in fact, his own player.
“I kind of wanted to make my own mark and carry on what they left,” Hampson, now a junior, said. “I don’t like being compared to them because everybody is different. Everybody has different styles and the way they play the game and I just like to play my own game.”
Hampson came to Long Beach as a highly-touted prospect out of Reno High School in Reno, Nev., where he played for UCLA head coach John Savage’s brother Pete. He became just the third true freshman to start at shortstop for the Dirtbags (Crosby and Espinosa were the first two) and has followed a career path similar to that of Espinosa: Big West Freshman Fielder of the Year, Cape Cod League and Team USA all are on his resume.
But Hampson doesn’t have the power that Espinosa had at the plate. Which is just fine, because with an improved Long Beach State lineup this season, he’ll move from the middle of the order back to his natural leadoff spot.
“I’m more of a fast, get-on-base kind of guy,” Hampson said. “I like to set the table for the big guys. We’ve got some pop this year. And especially with the fences moving in, who knows what we can hit. We might be able to hit some homers here at home.”
At 5-11, 185 pounds, Hampson is built for speed, be it in the middle infield or on the base paths. He was stole 18 bags in 22 attempts last season, and Buckley said he expects that number to increase this season at the top of the order.
Hampson hit .296 last season but slugged just .366. He was second on the team in walks (20) but struck out more than he would have liked to, a result of being forced to bat third.
“I hit him third last year, and I hit him leadoff just because we didn’t have that much last year,” Buckley said. “Garrett is arguably one of our best middle infield runners that we’ve ever had here. He can really run.”
But unlike all of those that came before him, Hampson hasn’t had a winning team around him. The Dirtbags broke a six-year postseason drought his freshman season but last year, they missed the postseason once again. In a way it was good for him, Buckley says, because he needed to learn to fail.
“We couldn’t execute the way we needed to,” Hampson said. “The hardest part was losing and just realizing how far you come during the year, how hard you’ve worked in the fall and the winter building up to the season, and then to have the season not go your way is pretty difficult.”
The feeling of team failure helped Hampson step up and become more of a leader for a team picked to finish third in the Big West – LBSU earned three first-place votes as Cal State Fullerton (4), UC Irvine (1) and UC Santa Barbara (1) split the other votes.
“Now it’s like, ‘Hey, what am I going to do to leave my mark here?’ You’ve got to win,” Buckley said. “Now he’s thinking, ‘What can I do to make everyone around me better?’ because that’s what I think those other guys did.”
Maybe “Shortstop U” is back. And if it is, maybe Hampson is the next name on that prestigious list. But if he is, just know that he’s not like the others before him. Hampson undoubtedly will embody the same Dirtbag qualities, but he’ll play the position the only way he knows how: His way.
“Garrett is Garrett, and that’s how he needs to be,” Buckley said. “He doesn’t need to be Tulo and he doesn’t need to be Espinosa. As his legacy continues to evolve here and this is his last year, I think he’s well more aware of what these guys did. And we’ve had conversations because he wants to make sure he leaves his stamp on this program.”