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Blake Blasi
continued from page 5
probably as good a lead-off hitter
as you’re going to find right now.”
‘‘He brings such great discipline
to the team, and it’s hard to teach
discipline,” hitting instructor Tom
Beyers said. “We’re probably one
of the youngest teams in the
league, and without players like
him, it’d be really tough.”
Blasi softly chuckles when re
minded that he is “the old guy” on
the team at a ripe old age of 21. But
on a team with many 19-year-olds
fresh out of high school, his col
lege experience is paying great
dividends.
Blasi was a part of the rich base
ball school of Wichita State. This
past season, he led the Shockers in
average with a clip of .391 and
only committed nine errors in 163
attempts.
Such stellar play warranted him
the Missouri Valley League Player
of the Year.
“Awards like that are nice, but
there are so many guys in the
league that are deserving of it,”
Blasi said. “I was just the one who
got it.”
He was then drafted by the
Cubs, which presented a dilemma
to the junior, who had planned on
coming back for his senior year.
“It was tough because I was on
track to get my degree,” Blasi said.
“But if an opportunity is there to
fulfill a dream that you’ve had
growing up as a child, why would
n’t you take it?”
Blasi also knows how precious
the game of baseball is.
That lesson was driven home to
him on April 23,1999.
Blasi was getting ready to start
at second base for Wichita State as
they prepared to take on Evans
ville.
He was fielding warm-up
grounders from his first baseman
when he saw it happen.
Wichita State pitcher Ben Chris
tensen was getting irritated by
Evansville batter Anthony Molina
for creeping closer to home plate
and timing his pitches.
Christensen fired a 90-plus mph
fast ball directly at Molina’s deft
eye and was ejected — still before
the game had even started.
It may have taken 23 stitches to
close the gash on Molina, but Blasi
says nothing will ever be able to
erase the memory of that eerie mo
ment.
“It was crazy,” said Blasi, while
slowing shaking his head in reflec
tion. “It’s one of the weirdest
things that I’ve ever experienced
in baseball.”
Christensen was a member of
the Eugene Emeralds last year and
Emerald
Blake Blasi considers himself the elder statesman on the team, even though he is
only 21 years old. His collegiate experience is vital to his fellow Emeralds teammates.
struggled. This year, however, he
is a member of the Cubs’ AA team,
and is excelling. He’s off to a 3-0
start with a 1.70 earned run aver
age, and Blasi couldn’t be more
thrilled for his ex-teammate.
“Baseball is already a tough
enough mental game, but it’s got to
be overbearing to deal with some
thing like that every single time
you play,” Blasi said. “He’s not
someone who wants to hurt peo
ple. He knows he made a mis
take.”
One that Blasi uses to remind
himself that baseball is a game that
needs to be respected. A game
where the moment you become
complacent, you become vulnera
ble.
“When you get to this level, you
find out that you have to get into
good habits to keep improving,”
Blasi said. “There are so many tal
ented athletes who never make it
all the way.”
But first things first, Blasi says.
He wants to help lead the Ems to a
Northwest League championship.
His team is 10-11 in preparation
for the upcoming five-game home
stand starting Wednesday against
Spokane at Civic Stadium.
And about those critics of years
past?
Too small, they said?
“I think that’s overrated,” Sheaf
fer said. “I really don’t know who
wrote the book on baseball to
show how big you’re supposed to
be. The bottom line is how you
play the game.”
Not enough home runs? Blasi
knows he’s not here to hit home
runs, although that didn’t stop
him from belting two over the
fence in Sunday’s game against
Yakima.
Never going to make it? Well, he
has and you better believe he’s sa
voring every moment of it.
“We’re adults now and we can
say we’re playing a kids game and
getting paid for it,” Blasi said.
“Who else can say their job is to
play games every day?”
Clearly Blasi is thrilled to be a
part of the game and Eugene
should be the same that it gets to
be his playground.
006254
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