Roller Named To Golden Spikes Watch List
February 18, 2010 | Baseball
Feb. 18, 2010
DURHAM, N.C. - East Carolina senior DH/1B Kyle Roller has been named to the preseason Golden Spikes Award Watch List for the 2010 season. The release of the watch list marks USA Baseball's first step toward identifying the top player in college baseball.
Sponsored by Major League Baseball, the Golden Spikes Award will be presented in 2010 for the 33rd time. The Watch List features 50 of the nation's top amateur talents, and it will be a "rolling" list to ensure that athletes can play themselves into consideration for the Golden Spikes Award, to be presented live on Tuesday, July 13, at the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star FanFest in Anaheim, Calif.
Roller, a 2009 first-team All-America selection by the America Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) and Ping!Baseball, batted .366 (86-for-256) with 16 home runs and 75 RBI. He ranked among the national leaders in hit by pitches (fourth), RBI (23rd), total bases (79th), home runs (80th) and hits (98th) after earning first-team All-Conference USA and NCAA Greenville Regional All-Tournament honors.
The Rockingham, N.C. native Roller has been tabbed preseason All-America by Collegiate Baseball (first-team), National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) (second-team), Ping!Baseball (second-team), All C-USA (first-team) by the leagues head coaches, while also being selected as the sixth-best player in college baseball by CollegeBaseballBlog. Earlier in the week, Roller was selected as one of 30 candidates for the 2010 Lowe's Senior CLASS Award for baseball, which focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
On Tuesday, June 1, USA Baseball officials will cut the list of players to 30 names. The final list of 30 will then be sent to a voting body consisting of select professional baseball personnel, past USA Baseball National Team coaches, select members of the media, former USA Baseball sports information directors and current USA Baseball staff -- about 150 voters in total.
All voters will be asked to choose five players from the list of 30 names. Fan voting will once again be a part of the Golden Spikes Award in 2010. June 1 will also mark the day when college baseball fans from across the country will be able to vote for their favorite player for the Golden Spikes Award on goldenspikesaward.com. On Tuesday, June 8, USA Baseball will announce the five finalists, and voting for a winner will commence that same day.
The 2010 USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award will be presented nationally July 13 on an award show via live telecast from Anaheim on goldenspikesaward.com, USABaseball.com and MLB.com in conjunction with All-Star FanFest.
Past winners of the Golden Spikes Award include Terry Francona (1980), Will Clark (1985), Robin Ventura (1988), Jason Varitek (1994), J.D. Drew (1997), Mark Prior (2001), Jered Weaver (2004), Tim Lincecum (2006), David Price (2007), Buster Posey (2008) and last year's winner, Stephen Strasburg.
