17-0

Pity the hitter who must face Jeff Niemann for he is a giant among college pitchers. Standing 6' 9" tall, the Rice sophomore must appear even more imposing when throwing fireballs from a 10-inch mound.
Few batters were successful against Niemann, and no team managed to beat him. The right-hander went 17–0 for the season with a 1.70 ERA, becoming the second pitcher in Division I history to go undefeated with as many wins. He also set a Rice record by winning 18 consecutive games.

By the end of the season, he was declared a titan in the sport and received a host of honors: national player of the year, pitcher of the year, All-College World Series, All-America first team, three-time WAC pitcher of the week, and national pitcher of the week, and he was a finalist for the Rotary Smith Award.

“His potential is virtually unlimited,” says Rice baseball coach Wayne Graham. And Graham knows talent when he sees it, having recruited and developed such stars as New York Yankee pitchers Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. Graham believes that Niemann will be among the top five players in the draft next year.

To add to Niemann’s accolades, he was invited to try out for the 2003 USA Baseball national team this summer, but he opted to play in the Cape Cod League, because he wanted to take a two-week break before playing again. “I was physically and mentally exhausted after the College World Series,” he says.

For being such a dominating pitcher, the 20-year-old doesn’t seem to have a mean bone in his huge body. He is shy and polite and surprised that success was bestowed on him so early in life. “I never suspected anything like this would ever happen,” he admits.

Niemann began playing baseball when he was five. He pitched and played first base in little league but says he was never a star. By the time he was in middle school, he stood 6'tall and, of course, with that height, it is almost a prerequisite for an athlete to play basketball.

Ironically, his height was of little help in a sport that favors tall people. Niemann tried out for Houston’s Lanier Middle School basketball team but was beaten out by Emeka Okafor, who is now a star center at the University of Connecticut. “I gave it my best shot,” he says. “So I figured that I would stick to baseball.”

Success in baseball came to Niemann like a good change-up: slow but effective. At Lamar High School, Niemann didn’t make the varsity team until his second year. In his senior year he went 9–1 and led his team to the district playoffs.

Niemann was not drafted out of high school, even though he had a 94-mile-an-hour fastball. Graham wasted no time in recruiting Niemann and gave him an opportunity to pitch in his freshman year. The record may not sound spectacular, but going 5–1 in his first year of Division I college baseball is “awfully good,” says Graham.

But being good was not good enough for Niemann. “I needed to lose weight and learn how to pitch,” he says. He began running the Rice loop and went from weighing 270 pounds to 255, which allowed him to have better control of his body and to pitch longer in games. In the previous year, Niemann could not pitch beyond six innings.

Niemann began to refine his pitching by learning how to throw to the outside corners of home plate. He also had to learn to trust himself. “I had to learn that I didn’t have to make the perfect pitch every single time.”

With a trimmer body and more control of his pitching, Niemann added one more weapon to his arsenal of fastball, slider, and change-up: he picked up a knuckle curveball. “I started throwing it because my regular curveball was not consistent,” Niemann says. “A knuckle curveball bites a lot harder, and you can throw it for a strike a lot easier.”

That was certainly evident in the opening game of the College World Series in which Niemann struck out 10 batters in eight innings and allowed only three hits. In his second game, Niemann had a slow start, but he settled down and shut down Stanford University for seven innings and led Rice to a 4–3 victory.

As Niemann competes in the Cape Cod League, where the best-of-the-best college players play, he is actually looking to relax and have some fun. But it is almost certain that after a few innings of pitching, Niemann will be like a great white shark ready to devour any diminutive batter who comes within range.

—By David D. Medina