Gary Ward: Talking baseball

I chatted with Gary Ward on Friday. That’s always a treat.

Ward is 14 years removed from coaching Oklahoma State baseball, but his passion for baseball hasn’t changed. Or his ability to fill your notebook with interesting stuff.

Ward has a reputation for being long-winded. It’s well-deserved. But he doesn’t repeat himself, and he doesn’t filibuster trying to figure out what he wants to say. Everything Ward says is fresh and new and interesting. There’s just a lot of it.

I talked to Ward on Friday about his great player, Pete Incaviglia, who is being inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame on Tuesday. I wrote about Inky for today’s paper. You can read the column here:

 http://newsok.com/pete-incaviglia-and-his-once-in-a-lifetime-collegiate-career-headed-to-oklahoma-sports-hall-of-fame/article/3480957?custom_click=lead_story_title

And though Ward stayed on point about Incaviglia, I learned other things just listening to Ward talk. For instance, Ward said he knew Inky would not make an infielder after just a few ground balls. Said that when Incaviglia bent his knees or squatted, his hands got slower. Think about that. It’s exactly true. An infielder has to be as quick the closer to the ground he gets as he is standing upright. But that’s something I had never thought about.