A Lot on His Mind

SAN DIEGO —  Fifty-seven Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates have won Nobel Prizes. Four have walked on the moon.

Only Jason Szuminski has retired Barry Bonds on a fly ball to left field.

Not bad for a guy who went 10-11 with the NCAA Division III Engineers and knows more about aerospace engineering than painting the corners of the strike zone.

“They’re worlds apart,” the San Diego Padre reliever said of his college major and baseball. “I haven’t found any correlation at all. I wish there was something that might help me out.”

The first MIT graduate to play in the major leagues worked one inning Sunday against the San Francisco Giants and three innings Wednesday against the Dodgers, giving up two runs.

“He controlled Barry Bonds” on Sunday, said Ernest “Zoomer” Szuminski, who watched his son pitch in his major league debut at Petco Park. “He knew what he was doing.” That effort temporarily kept the slugger stuck on home run No. 659.

Szuminski provides the Padres with more than another capable arm; he’s their rocket man.

First Lt. Szuminski is thought to be the first active member of the armed forces on a major league roster since the Korean War, though he recently switched from active duty to the Air Force reserves.

Szuminski, who got his commission through MIT’s ROTC program, owed the Air Force another year of active duty but was allowed to trade out of it, adding three years to his reserve commitment. He will fulfill that commitment in the off-seasons.

The 25-year-old spent last winter assigned to the Space and Missile Command at the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo and Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, working on the acquisition of high-frequency communication satellites.

“It was pretty neat stuff,” said Szuminski, the son of a Navy fighter pilot.

The Padres will hold military opening day today against the Dodgers at Petco Park, and Szuminski has requested to be introduced as Lt. Jason Szuminski if he pitches. That’s some dedication for a player who had to donate his minor league salary to charity because of his ties to the Air Force. Now, as a member of the reserves, he gets to keep his major-league minimum $300,000 salary.

Szuminski’s teammates seem pleased that their resident egghead keeps conversations steered toward baseball -- most of the time.

“He seems fine until he starts babbling about microphysics in the bullpen,” joked Padre reliever Jay Witasick.

Szuminski acknowledges that he’s the last guy in the Padre bullpen, but even that is a pretty heady accomplishment for someone who graduated from high school with an ordinary fastball and who didn’t wow anyone in college until his senior season.

“My high school coach always said I was the kind of guy who could bloom a little later than others, ‘So keep playing, if you like it, and you never know what will happen,’ ” Szuminski said.

What happened was that the Chicago Cubs drafted Szuminski in June 2000 in the 27th round as the 793rd player chosen of 1,452. Last season, the right-hander made the jump from Class-A Dayton to triple-A Iowa and was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the Rule V draft. The Royals promptly traded him to the Padres.

“It was a big year for me,” said Szuminski, a 6-foot-5, 225-pounder who has a good sinker and slider to go with his 94-mph fastball.

Said San Diego General Manager Kevin Towers: “He shows no fear whatsoever, which is not the norm for your typical Rule V pick. There’s something special about the way he handles himself. He’s very mature and he’s a competitor.”

Szuminski’s status as a Rule V draftee, and possibly the buzz generated by weekly updates in Sports Illustrated, helped him make the Padre roster. If he is not on the club’s 25-man roster at any point this season, the Cubs can take him back, though he first will have to clear waivers.

His Padre teammates aren’t planning any goodbyes. “There’s a reason why he’s here,” Witasick said. “I don’t think it’s because he’s an MIT graduate. It has a lot to do with how he throws the baseball.”