Dec. 6, 2008
SAN DIEGO - San Diego State junior pitcher Stephen Strasburg has been named to the 2009 Brooks Wallace Player of the Year Award Watch list. The initial list contains a total of 204 nominees with the Aztec right-hander among seven players representing the Mountain West Conference.
Strasburg returns to SDSU for his third season after earning consensus All-America honors in 2008. He finished the season with a record of 8-3 and a 1.57 earned run average in 13 starts. He struck out 133 and walked only 16 over 97.1 innings and was named the MWC Pitcher of the Year.
This past summer, Strasburg had the distinction of being the lone collegiate player on the U.S. Olympic team in Beijing where he earned a bronze medial after making appearances against The Netherlands and Cuba. He was also a member of the U.S collegiate national team that captured a pair of international tournament titles in Europe. His overall stats for the summer included a 5-1 record with a 1.21 earned run average along with 78 strikeouts and eight walks in 52 innings.
The Wallace Award is presented to the nation's top collegiate baseball player in conjunction with the College Baseball Hall of Fame's annual induction festivities.
Dedicated to the memory of former Texas Tech shortstop and assistant coach, Wallace was a slick-fielding shortstop at Texas Tech from 1977 to 1980. A four-year starter, he was named All-Southwest Conference and All-District Six his senior year when he led the Red Raiders to their first-ever appearance in the Southwest Conference Tournament. After playing two years in the Texas Rangers organization, he returned to Texas Tech and served as a graduate assistant and later as an assistant coach. In the summer of 1984 he was diagnosed with cancer and fought the disease courageously until his death on March 24, 1985, at age 27.
The selection committee for the Wallace Award is comprised of a national panel of preeminent coaches, sports information directors, former winners and beat media who most closely follow the sport.