LSU's baseball team is a lot like a freak show. There aren't any bearded ladies, dog-faced humans or lizard men, but the roster is full of athletes — Tommy White, Paul Skenes, Dylan Crews and Tre' Morgan — who can do things that not many other players in the nation can do. But there is a strong man, and his name is Jared Jones.
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The 6-foot-4 freshman slugger is proving himself a man among boys early into his collegiate career. Jones already has six home runs through 16 games for the No. 1 Tigers, and the power has been on full display. The epitome of that? A moonshot that cleared the scoreboard at Baton Rouge's Alex Box Stadium.
LSU's Jared Jones' Moonshot Clears Scoreboard
Jared Jones crushed an absolute moonshot over the scoreboard. pic.twitter.com/fLJt6tNoXZ
— Baseball King (@BasebaIlKing) March 11, 2023
Soak that in. I don't know how far that went, but I'm gonna guess a bajillion feet.
Jones' moonshot was one of four consecutive home runs in four at-bats he hit last weekend against Samford. It was quite the coming out party for the kid who was ranked the No. 4 catcher in the country coming to LSU. The dude they call "bear" didn't earn his nickname because of his strength, though.
He told reporters he became "bear" after his brother became "moose."
Jared Jones says he got his nickname “Bear” because when his older brother was born his parents encountered a Moose so they started calling him Moose.
After that, Jones’ mother started calling him Jare Bear. His father then cut the Jare part so the nickname Bear stuck. #LSU
— Koki Riley (@KokiRiley) March 11, 2023
So, just who the hell is this kid?
Jones is from Marietta, Ga., where he crushed 35 home runs over his prep career at Walton High School. At 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, the first baseman certainly doesn't look like a freshman. And he doesn't wallop balls like one, either.
"All Jared has done the past two days is show how talented he is; he's really mentally strong," LSU head coach Jay Johnson said after Jones crushed two home runs against Samford on Saturday. "I give him a lot of credit; I've seen young players go in the tank after a couple of difficult games, but Jared has been really impressive, not just physically but the work that he put in mentally. When he's in the right frame of mind, he's seeing the ball, he's got the bat speed, and he can hit the ball out to all parts of the field as we've seen the past two days."
The Tigers is rolling right now. They haven't lost in the month of March, and Jared Jones is just getting started.
