Hlas: Hawkeyes slugger Jake Adams has a monster year

IOWA CITY — A University of Iowa baseball player has neared the status of folk hero.

Jake Adams was given the Big Ten Player of the Week honor for the second-straight week Monday. BaseballNews.com announced Adams was named one of Collegiate Baseball's National Players of the Week.

Four games, five home runs, eight RBIs, and a single-season school home run record smashed. That's a good week.

The first of Adams' two homers last Friday at Illinois was his 23rd of the year, breaking the Iowa mark of 22 set by John Knapp in 1986. It was into a stiff wind in the first inning of the second game of a doubleheader. He clubbed another later in the game, but said No. 23 will be the one he remembers the longest.

'Hitting that one into the wind and getting it out, my body went numb,' Adams said. 'I knew I did something that not a lot of people have a chance to do, obviously putting my name in the record book here. I'll always cherish that that one for the rest of my life.'

In Big Ten games only, the 6-foot-2, 250-pound first baseman from Brandon, S.D., led the league in homers and slugging percentage. He tied for first in doubles, was second in RBIs, and tied for third in hits.

A year ago, he was playing for Des Moines Area Community College in Ankeny, where he hit 25 homers as a sophomore and secured a scholarship to play at the University of North Dakota. But last spring, UND dropped the baseball program it launched in 1889.

Iowa was able to give Adams 40 percent of a full scholarship. Hawkeyes Coach Rick Heller knew he got a slugger. However, with the adjustment from junior college to Division I pitching, no one could've foreseen 24 home runs and maybe more to come in this week's Big Ten tournament in Bloomington, Ind. (Iowa plays Maryland Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. on BTN).

'We knew he had power coming in,' Heller said, 'but you never really know what type of hitter someone is.

'Soon after he arrived we knew we had something special.'

If Adams is selected in the first 10 rounds of next month's Major League Baseball amateur draft, he'll almost surely be a one-year Hawkeye. Heller says he can see Adams reaching the big-leagues.

'I've been doing this a long time,' Heller said. 'You get very few chances to coach a guy like him.

'I've gotten to know Jake's dad the last month or so as we've talked about draft possibilities and trying to help him with that. His dad has been telling him all the right things since he was 7 years old and started playing, about how to handle himself and how to handle a bad day, about being a good teammate when things aren't going well, about being able to put a bad day behind you and move on to the next at-bat.'

Adams' 24 homers in 53 games for the 34-19 Hawkeyes puts him in a tie for second nationally. Ben Fisher of Eastern Kentucky, whose season is over, hit 25 in 56 games.

Asked if he has looked at the list of the NCAA's home run leaders, Adams said 'No, I have not.' Asked if he knows where he stands on that list, he replied 'No, I don't.'

Why? 'I just don't like that pressure. Obviously, we still have games to play. I want to keep as little pressure on myself as I can.'

Whatever Adams' mental approach is, he should keep it. Four years ago, Iowa hit a total of two home runs over its 49 games. Adams has hit two in a game on three occasions.

He hits the ball, Heller said, 'as far as anybody from the major leagues on down.'

If Adams can help the Hawkeyes win the Big Ten tourney and advance to the NCAA tournament, there's no debating it. It's folk lore, folks.