He Hit Rock Bottom Before Turnaround

All Marco Hanlon could think about Friday night as he watched Cal State Fullerton's baseball team make terrible pitches and terrible errors on the way to a terrible 10-7 loss to Ohio State in the first game of the NCAA super regional was that his baseball career was over. And that it was ending in front of a TV set, instead of on the field.

Hanlon has played baseball all his life. In Little League, in the backyard, at the park, at Woodbridge High in Irvine, at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo and, for the last two years, at Fullerton. The senior has been a middle reliever and a starter. He's also a realist. He knows there will be no pro baseball for him.

Some day Hanlon would like to own a major league team and maybe launch a professional Wiffleball league. But play some more?

"Nope," Hanlon says. "That's not gonna happen."

So when the Titans had dropped the first of the best-of-three set to the Buckeyes, while Hanlon watched from his Fullerton apartment, it was, Hanlon says, "the absolute lowest moment of my life. I'm a pretty optimistic guy but for about 24 hours I kind of lost hope, and the circumstances . . . just got to me."

Hanlon, you see, was one of the four Fullerton players who had been suspended from last weekend's games after having been arrested at the regional the previous weekend in South Bend, Ind.

Hanlon and sophomores Adam Johnson, David Bacani and Chad Olszanski were arrested after climbing onto the roof of a restaurant and throwing rocks. There had been a complaint from the restaurant owner about the rocks scaring customers. The players say they were throwing at trees and looking at the skyline.

They were suspended indefinitely from the team and as the Titans, already disappointed about losing a bid to host the super regional, went to Columbus, Hanlon faced a horrible prospect.

"It hit me that my career might be over and that I wouldn't get a chance for it to end on the field," he said. "You know, when it all started, we hadn't intended anything bad. We never thought what we did would be any big deal. When the police came, I knew we had made a huge mistake. I felt awful. We all did."

Everybody makes mistakes. There is a feeling sometimes that athletes who make mistakes too often get excused, that they are protected and pampered and made to feel they don't have to feel responsible. Not this time. The punishment was immediate. It was severe.