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Sunday, May 25, 1997

Texas baseball legend keeps moving forward

By BRENT ZWERNEMAN / The Bryan-College Station Eagle

BRYAN, Texas - It's still tough catching up with Jon Peters.

Eight years have passed since Peters wasn't only the talk of Brenham, the Brazos Valley and Texas, but the nation because of his 53-game winning streak as a schoolboy pitcher.

His fastball once topped out about 90 miles an hour, but plenty of guys threw heat. Peters' story was special in that it was set in Brenham, home of Blue Bell, bluebonnets and above all, baseball.

The Brazos Valley had never seen anything like it and probably won't again. That April 1988 night Peters broke what was thought as the national record of 33 wins in a row by a high school pitcher, people poured around Brenham's Fireman's Park in anticipation of seeing history.

They did it again a year later when he broke a newly-discovered record of 50 wins by a pitcher in South Carolina.

"I'd never seen anything like it," says Robert Cessna, The Bryan-College Station Eagle's sports editor. "And I'm talking about covering things like Aggie baseball and football. The small-town atmosphere was incredible, everyone was just so excited about it.

"The only person who seemed calm throughout the deal was Jon Peters. He was just out there throwing fastballs and eating Blue Bell ice cream."

Mike Pill. Timmy Moore.

Those are the names once etched by the pitching record, the one Peters still holds. Fame may be fleeting, but Peters has been too busy to notice.

Once a collegiate baseball career at Texas A&M and then Blinn Junior College didn't pan out because of the arm troubles, Peters came back to A&M and graduated with a kinesiology degree in 1994. He earned his master's degree in kinesiology at Sam Houston State in '96, and last year he assisted former Brenham baseball coach Lee Driggers at McMurry University in Abilene.

"I wasn't ready to give up baseball," says Peters, now 26. Meaning the coaching, not the playing. Peters wasn't even the pitching coach at McMurry. He was the hitting and infield coach, and the most throwing he did was batting practice.

Now, he's ready.

"There'd be times at McMurry when I'd wake up in the morning and not be too excited about going out to the field," he says. "I also taught classes, and really I enjoyed that a lot more.

"I realized there's more to life than baseball."

Whether that's blasphemous in Brenham might be a question, but in any case Peters now is headed to Baton Rouge, home of Louisiana State University, where he'll work on his doctorate.

There once were pictures of a smiling Peters with his arm raised after another win, and a Sports Illustrated cover story when he ran his record to 51-0. Peters at the time was only the second schoolboy athlete to make SI's cover.

Brenham at that point had won three straight state titles and was gunning for an unprecedented fourth. Peters would lose two starts later against West Orange-Stark, and the Cubs - without Peters pitching - lost in the state semifinals to Austin Anderson.

Peters finished with a high school record of 54-1, and teammate James Nix finished 30-2 for an unbelievable 84-3 combined record.

"Peters likely will be the better college pitcher," penned Cessna in The Eagle in 1989, "but they were both tremendous high school hurlers."

Nix, who worked in Peters' shadow, is now with the Cincinnati Reds' Triple A team after a standout collegiate career at McLennan Community College and Texas A&M. The two don't keep in touch.

Peters was more of a professional prospect as a sophomore in high school than a senior. After arm surgery following his sophomore year, Peters rarely threw harder than 82 mph.

Three more surgeries followed in college, before Peters decided to hang up the spikes for good. He says there's no regrets for what might have been. Sort of ...

"I don't ever look back and say what could have been," he says. "But there's been times when I wish my sophomore year had been my senior year. It would have been interesting to see how far I would have gone then."

Peters smiles at the attention he received as a 17-year-old.

"It was good for me," he says. "I matured a lot through it. I interacted with a lot of people and learned how to be sociable. And I learned how to stay humble through everything.

"But I could see where a lot of kids would take it out of perspective."

Says Cessna, "He was just a great kid considering all of the pressure and all of the attention. It didn't change his personality."

Peters is living with his mother, Ruth, for the summer and teaching a couple of college courses at an area prison while he gets ready for LSU. His father, Val, died of colon cancer about 2-1/2 years ago.

"I knew I wanted to get my education first, and then I was hoping to play professional ball, but that didn't work out so I have my education," he says. "My parents helped me keep everything in focus."

Peters probably will play a little softball this summer, but he's done with baseball. No sandlot ball, no over-30 league in five years.

"I'd rather watch it than try and go play it," Peters says with a slight smile. "When I throw hard, my arm gets really sore. Besides, I'm not in that kind of shape."

Peters, who's trim, boyish and wearing the same haircut he had in '89, looks like he could slide a green Cubs jersey on and not seem out of place.

Peters says he and his old teammates only rarely talk about those glory days of successive state titles and 50-something wins, of Sports Illustrated feature stories and thousands of adoring fans.

"We may bring it up occasionally," he says, "but it's not an everyday thing."

SI hasn't called in years. The magazine put Peters in its Faces in the Crowd when he signed with A&M, and also sent him a framed cover

"Superkid!" that hangs in his Brenham bedroom.

SI author E.M. Swift wrote, "What time, when you think about it, could ever be better than the spring of '88 for Jon Peters .... Why try to look into a crystal ball and talk about whether he'll turn into the next Nolan Ryan or David Clyde when the present is so satisfyingly rich?"

But he's become neither of those guys. He's Jon Peters, and when it comes test time those college students better be heads up for his high-heater.

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