Barrick’s blasts unleash clubhouse hijinx

SHORELINE — Clete Barrick won’t soon forget the time he smacked home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game.

Or the ramifications that ensued.

While the switch-hitting shortstop was being interviewed about his rare, two-homer feat at practice last week, his Shorecrest baseball teammates were perpetrating one of the oldest tricks in the book.

Barrick never saw it coming.

He was too busy fielding questions and discussing adjustments he’s made to his swing to notice what Scots pitcher Luke Loranger and catcher Tim Workman were doing behind his back.

With coaches and players discreetly watching on, Loranger cautiously slid a cream pie out of a batting helmet Workman was holding and planted it square on Barrick’s unsuspecting mug.

Splat.

“That’ll teach you to hit it out from both sides,” Workman razzed as he headed back to the dugout.

Though Loranger did the deed, it was Workman who masterminded the prank after Barrick supplied a pair of two-run shots in Shorecrest’s 11-5 Wesco 4A South Division win over Everett April 14.

As the Scots were raking the infield gravel following the game, Workman laid out the fiendish plot to head coach Brett Medalia, who agreed there was no better way to salute Barrick’s blasts and green-lighted the idea.

“How many times is this going to happen in a guy’s life?” Medalia said. “We got some of the other guys in on it. You could see them looking around the corner, waiting for it to happen.”

Barrick wiped his eyes and laughed off the flawlessly-executed caper, calling it an example of the fun-loving clubhouse the Scots have this season.

The 6-foot-1, 180-pound senior’s home-run display against Everett a day earlier rekindled a spark the Scots had been missing during a stretch of four league losses in five games.

“There was a lot of energy the whole game,” Medalia said. “You could kind of feel something special was going to happen at some point.”

Barrick supplied the fireworks, starting in the bottom of the fourth inning. Batting left-handed, he tattooed the first pitch he saw over the fence in left-center to highlight a six-run inning that put the Scots ahead for good.

Facing a left-handed reliever in the sixth inning, Barrick switched to a right-handed stance and belted a 1-1 offering down the left-field line.

Both long balls traveled more than 370 feet and were the first two home runs of Barrick’s high-school career.

“They were both fastballs, pretty much down the middle,” Barrick recalled. “The first one was a little high and inside and the next one was a little low.”

As Barrick rounded the bases for a second time, jaws dropped in unison in the Shorecrest dugout.

“There was a lot of disbelief. I don’t think it set in right away,” Medalia said. “When he got back into the dugout after the second one, there was an eerie calm for a split second and it was like, ‘Did we actually just see that?’”

Minding his father’s suggestion, Barrick has been a switch-hitter since he started playing baseball.

“Basically, the first swing I took was left-handed and the second swing I took was right-handed,” said Barrick, who considers himself equally strong from both sides.

Some of Barrick’s previous coaches weren’t supportive of his hitting habits, but Medalia has encouraged him to keep at it.

“It takes a lot of concentration and a lot of hard work,” Medalia said. “He has to take some extra swings beyond what he normally gets in batting practice. He works really hard at it.”

Barrick’s numbers this spring confirm a commendable work ethic. Through Shorecrest’s first 12 games, he was batting a team-high .600 (24-for-60). Last week, he was bumped up from No. 5 in the order to the cleanup spot.

“If he gets that inside pitch, he hammers it,” Medalia said.

The Scots went on to drop their April 16 rematch with Everett 3-2 and have been unable to pull away from Meadowdale and Lynnwood in the race for the league’s top berth to the Northwest District 3A playoffs.

“When this team is working together, we have a lot of potential. The biggest thing is for us to keep up the energy and play fundamental baseball,” Barrick said.

“Our defense has been solid and our hitting’s coming along. Things are coming together. As long as we have the energy and our pitchers throw as best they can, I think we’ll do quite well.”