The Barometer Online

Issue date: 2/17/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Jeff Wick New Oregon State pitching coach Nate Yeskie signals to a catcher in an intersquad scrimmage. Yeskie played collegiate baseball at UNLV and professionally in the Minnesota Twins organization prior to his coaching career.

Baseball is full of clichés; from "in any other park that is a home run" to "pitching a gem," one cliché is being deeply instilled into the Oregon State pitching staff this season, as baseball is more mental than physical.

Instilling this wisdom into the heads of the young men set to take the mound for the Beavers this season is new pitching coach Nate Yeskie. For some of the OSU pitchers, Yeskie is their first true pitching coach, though for a few Yeskie is the third coach at OSU they must trust their arms to.

"Everybody had different styles and I loved every one of them," senior Mark Grbavac said. "Coach Wong and Spence were both great and now Yeskie is doing a good job."

For Oregon State's junior and senior pitchers, their first pitching coach was Dan Spencer, followed by David Wong at the helm last season, something that OSU head coach Pat Casey took into consideration during the hiring process. Casey included his team in the interview process, connecting current players with prospective coach Yeskie before making a final decision.

"This summer he called me up, coach Casey wanted the players to kind of pick the guy that was going to be here because we are the ones working with him," junior Jorge Reyes said. "He just loves baseball, he knows baseball, all he does is baseball and he is in the office 24/7. We can call him any time of the day to talk to him about baseball, you can ask him a simple question about going to lunch and it somehow switches over to baseball and how it relates to scheduling."

Only time will tell if Yeskie's work will aide the Beavers in their quest to return to the NCAA Tournament, however based on Yeskie's résumé, Oregon State's pitchers appear to be in the right hands.

Prior to his first collegiate coaching stint, Yeskie was one of the top high school players in the state of Nevada and was named a Baseball America First-Team All-American in 1993. Passing on a major league contract from the Los Angeles Dodgers, Yeskie moved along to UNLV.

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