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Espinosa Fits in at Short
by Bob Keisser, Long Beach Press-Telegram
May 10, 2007
Baseball historians know every aspect of the poetic Chicago Cubs double
play combination of Tinkers to Evers to Chance.
Dirtbag historians now have their own melodic triple play combination:
Crosby to Tulowitzki to Espinosa. One will just have to forgive Danny
Espinosa for feeling a bit humble to be included in such company.
Bobby Crosby and Troy Tulowitzki were star shortstops at Long Beach State
who quickly went from college All-Americans and high draft picks to the
major leagues. Crosby was the 2004 AL Rookie of the Year for Oakland.
Tulowitzki is playing everyday and stands third in RBI for Colorado and
just turned the 13th unassisted triple play in major league history.
Espinosa is the sophomore shortstop for the Dirtbags who shares a lot
of the same talents as his predecessors, and is one of the main reasons
why Long Beach is leading the Big West with three weeks of play remaining.
At a generous 6-0 and 185, he is not as big as either Crosby (6-3, 215)
or Tulowitzki, who looks bigger than his listed 6-3 and 205. He doesn't
have Tulowitzki's power and is still gathering some of the poise and leadership
skills that made Crosby a star.
But he is an exceptional fielder, potentially the best of the three. He
is an improving switch-hitter with gap power, currently hitting in the
cleanup spot. Going into this weekend's series at UC Santa Barbara, he
is hitting .331 with 29 runs scored, a team-high 12 doubles, five home
runs and 32 RBI.
"It's nice to be compared to them, but they're in a different class,"
Espinosa said before a recent practice, "and much different players
than me. Troy is a power shortstop and I'll never be 6-3 or projected
to hit 20-plus home runs. But I feel lucky that people put my name in
the same sentence. It's an honor."
Like his predecessors, Espinosa is also a prodigy.
His dad, Dan, was a catcher at the University of Arizona in the '70s,
playing for legendary college coach Jerry Kindall. By the time he was
3, the Dirtbag shortstop was playing coach-pitch baseball. He met former
college teammates of his dad when he was 5, and can remember watching
his dad and older brother play for the same men's league team.
"I wasn't old enough to play, so I was the bat boy," Espinosa
said. "My dad never forced me to play ball. I just grew up watching
it. We had season tickets to Angels games, and I'd tell my dad, `I want
to do this, I want to do that.'
"My dad got me a flip book of Mickey Mantle. Flip it one way and
you could see him swing left-handed, and flip it the other and he would
swing right-handed. So I wanted to be like him. My dad said Mantle had
the greatest swing ever, but also told me what a great bunter he was."
Mantle was also a shortstop when he began in pro ball.
So Espinosa became a switch-hitter, like Mantle, and learned how to bunt,
started honing his fielding skills, and became good enough to make summer
travel teams by the time he was 10, often playing on teams where he was
two years younger than his teammates.
Travel ball took him to Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New York,
D.C. and New Mexico for his Orange County team's play
in the Connie Mack World Series, and Taiwan as a 16-year-old member of
the USA National under-18 team.
His dad put his recreational baseball career aside to be there for his
son during all those years of travel ball. "He said he would rather
be out there watching me than messing around with the guys," Espinosa
said.
"We're best friends. I tell my dad everything. He's always gone to
my games, him and mom (Vicki)." Dad is a criminal attorney, mom a
bookkeeper. "He was always there if I wanted to do extra work. Whatever
he was doing, he would drop for me."
Espinosa's strength is his defense. He has extraordinary range that has
more to do with his quickness to the ball off the bat than speed, a cannon
for an arm, and superb footwork on the double play.
"I had a pretty strong arm as a kid but I didn't notice it because
I didn't pitch," he said. His dad was concerned that he would hurt
his arm. "I recognized it when I was a freshman in high school (Mater
Dei) when people started commenting on it.
"That's when I realized it was a big part of my game.
"I played for John Elliott on a travel team in Newport Beach and
he really believed defense was important, so he would hit me ground balls
all day long. I'd take 100 a day and on weekends my dad and I would take
another 1,000 at a park near my house."
Surprising no one, the active player he respects the most is Omar Vizquel.
"I always thought playing defense was more fun than hitting,"
he said.
Espinosa did not hit well in his senior year of high school (.288), but
he began to blossom last season as a true freshman, being named Big West
freshman of the year and a freshman All-American by Collegiate Baseball.
He hit .281 on the season with a team-high 16 doubles.
He's hitting the ball this season with authority from both sides of the
plate, and his five home runs are five more than he had last season. Last
season, he made 19 errors and had a .939 fielding percentage. This year,
he's made just nine and has a .951 percentage, and many of the errors
can be traced to a tweaked nerve in his shoulder blade that caused him
to miss six games.
Dirtbags coach Mike Weathers believes Espinosa will become an even better
hitter once he matures. The only flaw in his game right now is a tendency
to strike out too much.
"Danny has made great strides in two big areas," Weathers said.
"He's hitting better right-handed, and he's eliminated some of the
fielding errors he made last season. Most of his errors this season have
been throwing. He's much more mature.
"He's also such a competitor. He truly loves to play the game, and
this year he's become a leader like Robert Perry, Matt Cline and Allan
Woods. He was hesitant to take that role last year."
"I've had to work pretty hard on my hitting," Espinosa said.
"It's taken awhile. I was frustrated at times last year, but I feel
more comfortable from both sides of the plate now and can feel things
are working better."
Whether it works as well as Crosby or Tulowitzki remains to be seen. But
right now, it's good enough to be in the same refrain.
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