Call It A Slick Double Play Cameron More Than A Bonus For Efforts That Landed Kinkade

For the past three seasons, Ken Cameron has lived in the minds of many Washington State baseball followers as “the other guy from Tigard, Ore.”

He never believed the label, but he understood it. And even more importantly, perhaps, he accepted it.

Cameron, afterall, had been little more than Mike Kinkade’s tag-along when the two Tigard High School standouts visited the WSU campus for the first time in the summer of ‘91.

The player the Cougars really wanted back then was Kinkade, a star catcher who had been named Oregon’s 4-A baseball player of the year.

But when Cameron, a 6-foot, 185-pound outfielder who had hit .400 as a senior at Tigard, accompanied Kinkade on his recruiting trip, then-Cougars coach Bobo Brayton jumped at the chance to close a package deal.

“It was kind of strange,” Cameron recalled of the dual recruiting visit. “They had me down as an invited walk-on.”

That meant Kinkade was going to get a partial scholarship to attend WSU and Cameron was going to have to pay his own way - at least for one year.

It was a win-win situation for the Cougars, who got the best prep player in Oregon - along with his best friend, who just happened to be able to play a little, too - and Cameron, who realized his dream of playing in the Pacific-10 Conference.

Kinkade proved to be as good as billed. He won a starting job as a true freshman and was named to the All Pac-10 and All-District teams the next two years.

And Cameron, after redshirting as a freshman, proved to be even better than billed.

As a redshirt freshman in 1993, he started 34 games in left field and batted .302. The following year he upped his average to .331, showed some power with seven home runs and stole 13 bases, the second-highest number on the team.

But no matter what Cameron did, he seemed destined to labor in the shadow of his long-time teammate, Kinkade, who hit .342, .364 and a league-high .388 in his first three seasons as a Cougar.

But that changed this year. New coach Steve Farrington has allowed Cameron to blossom as both a baserunner and a hitter.

Heading into tonight’s first game of a three-game series against South Division champion Southern California that will determine the Pac10’s automatic berth into next week’s NCAA Tournament, Cameron is batting .384 with six home runs.

In addition, Cameron has stolen a team-high 20 bases and driven home 44 runs for the Cougars, who won the North Division of the Pac-10 by two games over UW and finished 28-28 overall.

“The thing that makes him such a threat at the plate is that he uses the whole field,” explained Farrington, who was named the Pac-10 North’s Coach of the Year Wednesday. “He bunts a lot and runs very well, but he can take the ball out of the yard, too.

“He’s a good two-strike hitter and a good mistake hitter. If you make a mistake on him, he’s going to hurt you.”

Farrington added that he has seen nothing from Cameron in the way of resentment toward Kinkade and the publicity he has received.

“I’ve never seen either one of them show any concern about who’s getting more or who’s doing better,” Farrington said. “They both seem content with trying to do the best that they can.”

Cameron and Kinkade share an apartment, along with an intense competitive drive that has seems to make each one better.

“We’re both real competitive,” Cameron said, “so we’re always going after each other whether we’re playing Sega or cards or whatever. But as far as being over-shadowed on the field, I don’t really have a problem with that - as long as I’m doing what I want to do and doing it as well as I can.”

Cameron, who has played right field most the season, is also an excellent fielder with an above-average arm.

He would seem to be a splendid leader on which Farrington could build next season, but the likelihood of Cameron staying around for his senior year is slim.

“I’d love to have him,” Farrington admitted, “but I would imagine he’s going to get a chance to play pro ball next year. I think he’s going to make somebody a good center fielder or left fielder in professional ball.”

Cameron said he would jump at the chance to play professionally, adding that his decision to leave school early has been made even easier by the Cougars’ drive to their first North Division championship since 1991.

“Being able to do that was huge,” said Cameron, who is only 12 credits short of earning his degree. “Some of us guys had waited a long time for that and now that we’ve done it, it would be hard to turn down a pro offer.”