Chansky’s Notebook: It’s BAT-man!

Carolina baseball’s Robin was promoted to Batman this season.

You know that TV commercial where the character dressed up like The Dark Knight is asked if he is the real deal. “No, I am BATE-man, says actor Jason Bateman who is later seen telling his super scooter to slow down.

Vance Honeycutt was the Tar Heels’ baseball batman last season before getting drafted in the first round by the Orioles. His sidekick was a freshman third baseman who batted .314 and smashed a walk-off grand slam homer in the opener of the NCAA tournament as he, Honeycutt and the Heels went on to the College World Series.

Now a sophomore with menacing diagonal black grease under and up the side of his eyes, Gavin Gallaher is the new Batman. If asked, he could easily say, no, “I’m BAT-man.”

He looks smaller than 6-foot-1, 191 pounds when he literally digs in at home plate. His two homers against Oklahoma in this season’s regional final flew out of Boshamer Stadium almost faster than you could see them. They both traveled 382 feet into the Carolina night before hitting something. The first had hang time with a velocity off the bat of 108 miles per hour. The second went out in a Chapel Hill second, screaming over the leftfield fence at 113 mph.

He is still a year away from MLB draft eligibility, but the pro scouts know him as Gavin Gallaher, sophomore from Apex, personifying how Scott Forbes is building his own dynasty around a base of home-grown Tar Heels. Like last year’s Batman from Salisbury.

“We see him work every single day,” said freshman relief pitcher Walker McDuffie, he of the large round glasses that make him look more like a teacher than a closer. “Nobody else sees what he does, and for him to go out there and do that and for everybody to see it, it’s pretty cool.”

Those last two dingers were Gallaher’s latest of a team-high 17 this season. He is hitting .323 (second to infield sidekick Alex Madera’s .333) and with 65 RBIs has almost doubled his 38 as a freshman (also tops on the team.)

BAT-man would be the first to tell you that baseball is a team game, when you do what you can to make the play in the field, get on base at the plate and move the runners along when it’s your turn.

“You can’t be afraid to take a walk and trust the guy behind you,” Forbes told the Daily Tar Heel after his club advanced to its second straight Super Regional back at the Bosh. “These guys have really bought into that and helped us pressure teams, especially the second half of the season.”

No question, this band of Robins know where they want to go. The Arizona Wildcats will have heard of their latest Batman long before he digs in for the first time.