A Minor League Memento
OPINION - Jon Hooker was a good man, a pitcher, and the centerpiece of a senseless tragedy, the crash of a ComAir flight on the wrong runway on an airfield in Lexington, Kentucky on Sunday. Joey Ballgame, a.k.a. Joe Thurston, hit the big time with a late season call-up to the Philadelphia Phillies last week. Stephen Drew, our MLN FAB50 Baseball 2006 No. 1 pick, is well on his way to a big-time career.
The three have had widely varying degrees of success in professional sports. Hooker found himself playing in the independent Northern League. Thurston, whose career with the Los Angeles Dodgers should have hit outer orbit in 2002, instead found himself mired in payroll politics, and had to wrestle with the spirit-crushing realities of the sport. Stephen Drew has great gifts, to be sure, but he has also had the good fortune of being "the right people" in the right organization with the right need at the right time.
They are all gusts of destiny, tumbling through the game of baseball.
As I watched Thurston this weekend, taking his cuts at the plate for Philly, I was both happy and sad for him.
It's been a very long road for Joe, who was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 45th round in 1997, then by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 4th round in 1999. He made the Dodgers 2003 media guide as the heir apparent to Alex Cora's job, but was yanked back to the minors. He hovered around Las Vegas with the 51s until the Dodgers traded him to the New York Yankees at the end of 2005. The Bombers blew him out over the winter, granting him his release after a short stint with the Triple-A Columbus Clippers. He signed with the Phillies as a free agent this Spring, and was playing second base for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Red Barons in the International League, where he batted .282 with a handful of homers (9).
His call-up has been as an outfielder, not at his position of expertise, second base. A call-up is a call-up, goes the theory, and the OF is somewhere that the Phils have opportunity to use his bat and see if he can fit in their future plans as the season winds down.
I most probably would never have seen nor have heard about Jon Hooker , other than in reference to his participation in the 2003 Northern League championship team for the Fargo Moorhead Redhawks. The bad fortune of the crash of a small commuter aircraft at Blue Grass airport that brought an end to his new life propelled him into the spotlight in a way that his professional pitching career could not.
Jon was the epicenter of a larger sadness: He had married over the weekend and was on his honeymoon. It was that particular story 'hook' that launched the media, us included, into finding out more about him and his new bride. The other 47 people, whose lives were equally significant, died in Sunday's crash without much epitaph, relegated to a faceless statistic on an NTSB safety ledger. While fame largely eluded him on the baseball diamond, it would visit him in tragedy.
Since 2002, Stephen Drew's feet have really never touched the ground. He already had the great mojo of being the brother of one of the more talented, if a bit troubled, players to come up in recent years, J.D. Drew. He had super agent Scott Boras, the Darth Vader of Deals, in his corner. His record since he emerged, smoking hot, out of college and past the Single-A, has been a bit cooler: Drew batted .218 for the Tennessee Smokies and .284 for the Sidewinders. The numbers are a bit qualified though: He has shown the sparks of greatness, with double-digit home runs and excellent defensive play that have paid off in a fine launch of +.300 play since arriving in Pheonix with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
There are many players, though, who might have coasted a bit longer with the same numbers, or had to wait a season or two for their spot to clear on the major league roster. The breeze has blown incredibly kindly upon him, and given him some lift that will blow open lots of doors.
At the same time as this odd essay was forming, I received my usual monthly emails, ranging from the generally hostile to the truly puzzled who can't fathom why we bother covering all of these 'insignificant' minor league and independent players. I think that these three players provide the answer.
In 2004, at age 25, Jon Hooker had his best stint ever as a pro, playing for the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks and turning in a 1.17 ERA with only one home run given up and 18 strike outs to his credit, a feat known largely the FM fans who care, his coaching staff, family, and the guys around the pressbox at the stadium. Some of you, particularly in the larger markets, would say this is the proverbial tree falling in the woods with no one there.
Sure, you get a thrill watching guys like Pedro Martinez, Derek Jeter or Stephen Drew take the field. Their accomplishments will be the success sausage that the Big MLB Machine will grind out . If you're a real baseball fan though, you have to love the wonder of the game. It's not limited to Mike Piazza and Barry Bonds. It has lots of nuance and flavor. Sometimes, though to be a real connoisseur, you have to look a bit harder for it.
In the micro-bubble of baseball that is Fargo, North Dakota or Joliet, Illinois, or in that six or seven slot in which a Joey Ballgame finds a small crack in a major league roster from which he can try to finally shine, there are some truly wondrous moments.
For baseball wonder junkies, these gifted athletes, fast track or no track rise above their minor league careers. They make up major moments that touch so many lives beyond their own. As much as we have become obsessed with the money in sports, it's those memories that are far more lasting, and the ultimate reward of gracing the game.
It's what the great and small share.
Brian Ross
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