April 25, 2006

by Louis Bonnette

There was a time when men of iron walked the campus of McNeese State University.

Bobby Barnes was one such athlete.

He would throw the javelin in a track meet in the morning or early afternoon and then go out and pitch a complete baseball game.

"I really didn't think much of it," he now says. "It was just something that I loved doing."

For three years (1966-68) he was a two sport standout at McNeese in the same season.

And, from all existing records, he?s been the only one.

There have been other athletes who participated in two sports in the same year but never in the same season.

"Bobby was one of a kind," recalls Desmond Jones, who coached him in baseball at McNeese.

"I remember one particular day - don't recall if we were playing Northwestern State or Southwestern Louisiana but it was one of them - we were playing a doubleheader and Bobby had pitched and won the first game.

"I was undecided about who I would start the second game and Bobby came to me and said that he would like to start the second game also. I think that he went three or four innings and got us over the hump. That shows what type of gamer he was.

"He was very competitive and he was a winner."

In the three years that Barnes competed for McNeese, he won a Gulf States Conference javelin title, set a school and conference javelin record and earned all-conference and all-American recognition in baseball.

He was also the runnerup in the balloting for the league's athlete of the year award and was named the McNeese baseball MVP.

In 1993 he was inducted into the university's Hall of Fame.

As a Cowboy track athlete, Barnes won the conference title in 1967 and set a school record with a throw of 242-0.

In baseball, his top won-lost season record was 6-3 in 1967 when he also posted a 1.63 ERA. In his three year career he hurled 14 complete games, pitched 170 innings, struckout 135 batters and had a 2.32 ERA.

The lefthander hurled McNeese's first no-hit game in 1967.

"It was against Southwestern Louisiana," said Ronny Breaux, who was the Cowboy catcher for that game. "That was on a Saturday and we had a game with Northwestern State on Monday. Bobby pitched against Northwestern and should have won that game also.

"We were ahead 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh (we played seven inning doubleheaders back then) and Bobby throws a beautiful slider that caught the corner for the third strike and third out. The umpire didn't give it to us and the batter hits the next pitch over the fence to tie the game. I got tossed out of the game arguing that call and Bobby goes on to pitch 11 innings and we lost in the bottom of the 11th.

"That was 18 innings he had pitched in three days."

Barnes said that he grew up throwing things and throwing a baseball and a javelin came natural to him.

He went through all the baseball leagues (in one little league season he struckout 58 batters in 24 innings) and started throwing the javelin when he was still in the little leagues.

"I mainly learned to throw the javelin on my own," he said, "and I would practice throwing it several hours a day and that was every day of the week.

"I remember when I was going to Sulphur High, all of the coaches wanted me to play football because of my size (6-4 and 200 pounds by his senior year) and they kept after me.

"One Sunday afternoon I was out in the school practice field throwing the javelin and Coach Suarez (Shannon) saw me. The next day he called me into his office and asked me what I was doing at the school on Sunday throwing the javelin. I told him that I practice throwing the javelin every day. After that they didn't bother me about playing football."

Barnes went on to win the state title twice and set a national high school record, getting off a top throw of 229 feet.

His baseball was played in the summer in American Legion ball since back in the 1960s, no area high school played baseball.

By his final year of legion ball he was being watched by scouts (Houston, Boson, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles) from all over. He also had numerous universities - LSU included - after him to throw the javelin in track.

Barnes wanted to do both in college and he signed with McNeese State's Charlie Kuehn where he was allowed to do both.

"Back then once you signed with a college, you were locked in for four years and baseball scouts couldn't touch you until you were out of college," he said.

In his third season at McNeese he injured his shoulder and never got back the zip (estimated at 90 miles per hour since there were no radar guns then) that he had.

He dropped out of school after that third season, married and went to work at what was then the local Hercules plant.

Four years ago Barnes retired and now spends his spare time playing golf, fishing, refinishing javelins for local throwers and coaching granddaughter Kinley in the javelin.

He also began throwing the javelin again, taking his game to the Senior Olympics.

"Mark (Lumpkin) and Delmon (McNabb) got me back into it," he said of the two former local prep and LSU greats.

The second year of his competition he finished fifth in the national meet and the following year he placed second and went on to finish fifth in the world.

"I never could beat Delmon," he said with a smile.