Bucknell University Athletics
Former First Baseman Russ Lindberg Signs With the Florida Marlins Rookie Team in the Gulf Coast League
7/23/2001 8:00:00 AM | Baseball
July 23, 2001
LEWISBURG, Pa. - Former Bucknell University first baseman Russ Lindberg (Cleveland Heights, Ohio/St. Peter Chanel) has recently signed on to play with the Florida Marlins affiliate in the Gulf Coast Rookie League.
Lindberg has seen time in three games to this point, and is one-for-seven with a pair of RBIs. He is one of three former Bison players currently playing professional baseball at this time: Eric Junge is pitching for the AA Jacksonville Suns, an affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Kevin McDowell is pitching for the Oneonta Tigers, an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers in the New York-Penn League. Junge leads his team with 10 wins (10-6), 129.2 innings pitched, and 88 strikeouts. He has started 21 games and has a 3.61 earned run average. McDowell has pitched 12.1 innings, and is 0-1 with a 1.46 ERA.
Lindberg led the Bison to the 2001 Patriot League title and a berth in the NCAA Regionals with a .367 batting average. The 6,4," 235-lb first baseman played in and started 48 games, and was an All-Patriot League First Team selection and a candidate for Patriot League Player of the Year honors. He led the team and the conference in hits (61), home runs (9), RBIs (59), total bases (100), and sacrifice flies (6), and was among the top-five in four additional categories. His 59 RBIs rank as the fifth-best single-season total by any player in conference history.
Lindberg, who posted an impressive .991 fielding percentage with just four errors in 432 chances, set the school single-season record for putouts (405) and tied the mark for sacrifice flies (6). In addition, he set the career mark for putouts with 1148. He closed out his career in style by going 4-for-5 against Miami, the No.1 team in the nation, at the NCAA Regionals.
He was selected to the Pepsi-Johnny Quik All-Tournament team at Fresno State earlier in the season after hitting .458 during that week, including a blistering .647 (11-17) over the final four games of the tournament. Lindberg also took home Patriot League Player of the Week honors following his performance on the spring break trip to California.
Lindberg was also tabbed as a Verizon Academic All-American, becoming the 26th Bucknell baseball player to earn Academic All-America honors, and the 12th under current head coach Gene Depew. He graduated with a 3.57 grade point average and a degree in finance last May, and was a perennial member of the Dean's List and the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll. Lindberg was a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society, a member of the French Club, and a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity. In addition, he was part of Bucknell's student-managed Investment Fund, which is a class that invests $200,000 of the school's endowment and then reports annually to the board of trustees.
