As senior Steve Tinoco digs into the batter’s box, his white uniform with black pinstripes is marked by streaks of the infield clay at Blair Field.
The stain stretches from the Long Beach State logo on his chest all the way down his knee-high black stirrups in true Dirtbag fashion.
With the glare of the lights reflecting off of his eye-black, Tinoco takes two measured warm up swings and clutches his right elbow twice as he gets set for the pitch.
The delivery comes and Tinoco lines it up the middle for a single before sprinting to first as if he had to beat the throw.
That approach is partly why the Coto de Caza native is the face of a team where he is attempting to carve out a legacy alongside past greats.
“The Troy Tulowitzski’s, Evan Longoria’s, Bobby Crosby’s, Jason Giambi’s — how they played the game was hard every single day,” Tinoco said. “The Dirtbags [are] always the dirtiest. And you know they hate to lose. They play to win every single day.”
Tinoco prepped at Tesoro High School in Las Flores, Calif., where he lettered all four years in baseball and three in football. He set 10 school records, batted .400 and drove in 103 RBIs during his Tesoro career.
He appeared in 34 games as a Beach freshman, mostly platooning with fellow senior TJ Mittelstaedt in left field. In just 86 at-bats, he showed his potential with a .326 average along with 17 runs scored and 17 RBIs.
“As a freshman, I saw a real under control type of guy who could swing the bat,” LBSU head coach Mike Weathers said. “And a mature guy. Even as a freshman, he wasn’t scared.”
The 6-foot-1 first baseman remembers his first game as a Dirtbag in 2007.
“It was a Sunday at USC,” Tinoco said. “Putting on that jersey knowing that I was going out to play and that I was on the roster, it was exciting.
“My first at-bat was the most nerve-racking because I’m 18 years old going out to play against 21-year-olds that are ranked top in the nation. Being at SC and going up there was amazing because SC is always a powerhouse. It was a lot of fun.”
The freshman jitters went away and everything came together his junior year.
In 2009, he batted a team-high .343 with five home runs and 30 RBIs. His season was highlighted by a career day that ranks among the greatest in LBSU history when he went 5-for-5 with a school record-tying three solo home runs and four runs scored, even adding a stolen base.
“It was unreal,” Tinoco said. “It didn’t matter that day. You could have put any Friday night pitcher up there and it would not have mattered one bit.
“I went up there just thinking, ‘I’ma hit a home run and you can’t do anything about it.'”
Although his junior year was his most productive individually, the team tumbled from its 2008 first-place finish to sixth in the Big West at 25-29 — the program’s first losing season in 20 years.
“It was really tough, I mean, you work so hard every single day,” Tinoco said. “You put in all the hours in the gym and on the practice field and going out and losing the multiple games that we did [was] just disappointing.
It was a humbling experience for Tinoco after the team went 77-41 his first two seasons. He said the team wants to work harder to fight for every outcome this season.
“I learned to just never let that happen again,” he said. “We’re not a sub-500 team. We know we are better than that and we’re here to show it.”
The Dirtbags (13-12, 2-1 Big West) currently sit fourth in the conference, having won four of their last five. Tinoco is off to a torrid start, hitting .389 with 21 RBIs and a team-leading 37 hits.
Tinoco is also sitting on an 11-game hitting streak heading into LBSU’s upcoming three-game series at UC Davis.
“He is a guy that for four years has put our best at-bats up,” Weathers said. “He doesn’t swing at a lot of bad pitches. He knows himself as a hitter, he knows what he wants to hit. Those are key characteristic of a good hitter.”
In his final season at The Beach, Tinoco continues to wear out pitchers and channel play reminiscent of previous LBSU players.
“Remember me as giving my all every single day,” he said. “I didn’t leave anything behind. There is no what-ifs or regrets. They saw me go out every single day and give it my all.”
The way a Dirtbag should play.
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