Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 25, 1995 TAG: 9505260010
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
The most pronounced of these is that the team will win year in and year out, and otherwise give a good accounting of itself.
Just as the team has to meet strict standards, so do two of its prominent members. Shortstop Chad Foutz and pitcher/first baseman Larry Bowles have to answer to some rather demanding family members.
Foutz can take only so much.
``I didn't talk to my brother Matt for two months because he was always saying I wasn't working hard enough,'' Foutz said.
Bowles, a sophomore and the latest in a long line of Franklin County Bowleses who are proficient in the ball-and-bat sports, gets it from many different directions at once.
``Sometimes my dad gets me mad when he gets on me,'' Larry Bowles said. ``I realize he is just trying to help me out.''
Bowles' father passed the name Larry and his love of baseball and softball on to his son. Foutz's brothers Matt and Scott passed a similar uncompromising attitude to him.
Funny that Foutz would be accused of slacking as a worker. He's one of those first-to-arrive, last-to-leave guys.
How else do you explain a .576 average, 37 runs batted in and three home runs? Such numbers don't come to the lazy.
Which isn't to say that Foutz doesn't also have some talent to add to the mix.
``He's always going to hit,'' Bowles said.
It seemed that Bowles was always going to play baseball. The Bowles brothers, among them the elder Larry and Phil, have been the scourge of local fast-pitch softball diamonds for years. Phil Bowles produced a son by the same name who was All Timesland as a pitcher for Franklin County several years ago. Larry Bowles begat a son, he too of the same name, several years after the younger Phil Bowles came along.
``Phil and I grew up around the game,'' Larry the younger said. ``Every chance we'd get, we'd go play ball.''
Larry Bowles, like Phil, is a left-hander. Larry Bowles has gone 6-1 and struck out 53 in 34 innings. He has a 2.06 earned run average. Batting third, he's hitting .392 with 14 RBI and has struck out only three times this year.
``Sometimes, we forget he's a sophomore,'' Franklin County coach F.L. Slough said.
Not Foutz.
``I tell him every chance I get,'' he said.
Foutz is the man for Franklin County.
``He's always going to swing that bat,'' Bowles said.
Foutz also can pitch and has been particularly effective in short relief.
``He's increased his productivity every year he's been here,'' Slough said.
Foutz is part of a senior class that has been uncommonly productive. Among those who have been getting it done are pitcher David Webster (4-1), center fielder John Sawyers (.360, 15 runs scored), third baseman Steve Hurt (.321, 17 hits, 13 RBI), and Steve McGhee (.333).
``This is the first time in six years that Steve has even played baseball,'' Slough said. ``I've been trying to get him to come out for the team for years. He's a heck of an athlete. What he's done this year with that amount of experience has been amazing.''
Bowles claims that even though the team had won 13 of 17, Franklin County hasn't put it all together yet. The team will have a better idea of its prospects once it enters the Roanoke Valley District tournament this week.
``Once we put it all together, then we're going to be a great team,'' Bowles said.
by CNB