Prized Recruit Burrill Cut by Northridge
Brady Burrill, an All-Valley catcher at Valencia High last year, has been cut from the Cal State Northridge baseball team and probably will not play this season.
Burrill batted .482 last season at Valencia and was one of Northridge Coach Mike Batesole’s top recruits. But Burrill never felt comfortable in Batesole’s demanding fall program, the player’s father said. “I would only say that for Brady, it wasn’t a good program,” Jerry Burrill said. “For many kids it is. But for Brady, from the word go, it wasn’t.”
Burrill played in pain throughout the fall and finally was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his leg by Dr. Ralph Gambadella of the Kerlan-Jobe group.
“He practiced on it for four weeks,” Jerry Burrill said.
Batesole said that Northridge doctors could find no injury and added that he didn’t believe Burrill’s heart was into baseball.
“He quit one day and I talked him into staying,” Batesole said. “He came back for a few days and obviously it wasn’t going to happen, so he was cut.”
Batesole said he told Burrill he could keep his scholarship for four years. Burrill will at least finish out the school year at Northridge.
“I’m not going to be judgmental,” Jerry Burrill said. “Northridge is a good program and it will be a winning program. Sometimes there are chemistry problems. Brady is a tender, loving, caring person. He is not a banger.”
Batesole believes Burrill can play for someone.
“He can throw and he can swing it,” Batesole said. “But not everybody is cut out to play in this program.” Peter Zinniger, a catcher from El Camino College, has enrolled at Northridge and practiced with the Matadors on Monday, the first day of official practice. Zinniger will back up starter Jeremy Sickles.
