Foster ineligible to play for LSU
Published 10:57 am Monday, May 11, 2015
BATON ROUGE — Jared Foster’s LSU baseball career ended Friday, two days before the former Barbe High two-sport star was to have been honored on senior day.
Foster was not in the starting lineup or in the dugout Friday when the Tigers opened a three-game series with Missouri, and LSU officials confirmed that the starting second baseman was academically ineligible, effectively ending his career.
LSU head coach Paul Mainieri said he learned about Foster’s status at 4 p.m. Friday.
Final exams for the semester end today, and Mainieri said Foster would not have officially been ruled ineligible until Monday or Tuesday.
“I decided to put it in effect immediately and go with the players we will have for postseason,” Mainieri said. “I told the players right before batting practice.”
Foster’s production at the plate had fallen off recently as his average dipped to .275, but he was tied for the team lead in home runs with eight.
Mainieri said he requires three things of his players: they have to play well, be good citizens and make the grades.
“Jared was playing well on the field, he was a good citizen in community,” Mainieri said. “Unforunately he didn’t make a couple of grades.”
LSU might miss his defense as much as his bat.
Danny Zardon started at second base Friday with the usual backup, light-hitting Kramer Robertson, at least two weeks from returning from an elbow injury.
Foster played in the outfield his first three seasons at LSU, but this season took over at second base, his high school position, and was a key element in settling the Tigers’ lineup.
The move allowed Mainieri to move Conner Hale from second to third base, where Zardon struggled defensively.
Foster, also a quarterback at Barbe, initially went to LSU as a preferred football walk-on but dropped the sport after he found a home with baseball.
He returned briefly to the football team last August with LSU short on quarterbacks, but he injured a foot early in the experiment and did not return.
ULL football coach Mark Hudspeth (Associated Press)