On Thursday afternoon, Buchholz senior Brett Blair signed his letter of intent to play Division-I baseball at Stanford University.
“Stanford is the whole package,” said Blair, who committed this past February after garnering interest from the Cardinal late last fall at a camp. “Beautiful campus, beautiful climate. The coaching staff was great. They had great facilities and everything, so I thought it was the total package.”
Blair, who batted .304 with six runs driven in through eight games in a shortened junior season due to COVID-19, chose Stanford over Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, Columbia, Yale, and Georgia Tech.
He joins Luke Baker (Ole Miss) and Corbin Grantham (Mississippi State) as recent D-I signees for the Bobcats. Baker and Grantham graduated this past spring, but Blair benefited from his time with them.
“Luke and I would go out almost every weekend during the fall and he would throw live at-bats to me,” Blair said. “That got him better facing a good bat and that got me better seeing a really good D-I arm. And same thing with Corbin, every conditioning session, every practice, we were both pushing each other a lot.”
Head coach Ron Brooks said Blair has a tremendous upside.
“He runs really well, good exit velocity, all the kind of stuff that people look for,” Brooks said. “Not only is he a good showcase guy but he’s a hard-nosed baseball player and I think he’s going to do really well.”
Buchholz is scheduled to open the season on Tuesday, Feb. 9, at home against Lake Weir (Ocala).
