Long Beach State University Athletics
All Eyes on Longoria
3/10/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 9, 2008
ST. PETERSBURG -- Every time Evan Longoria has taken the field the last two seasons, eyes have been on him.
Selected by the Rays with the third pick in the 2006 draft and signed within 20 minutes, he was considered by Baseball America as the best hitter in his draft class and pegged as the position player who would reach the majors quicker than any of his peers.
Credentials such as those attract attention, and Longoria's peers may have been watching more intently than anyone. They looked for proof, whether in a line drive off a pitch they knew they wouldn't have been able to touch or a play at third base they had never seen anyone else make.
Longoria provided it, over and over, to the point that the spectacular became routine.
"I can't really point to one event because it's more of a daily thing," said Rays pitcher Jeff Niemann, who has played with Longoria each of the last two years. "It's like, 'He got to that ball -- wow' or 'How did he hit that?' or 'How did he hit that solidly?' Just small things you kind of see over the course of a season or a few weeks or a month and think, 'This guy's got a little something extra, he's got something special.' You definitely pick that up with him."
Even if it's hard to precisely define.
"He's kind of got that swagger," B.J. Upton said.
Durham coach Gary Gaetti, who spent 20 years as a big-league third baseman, had a chance to work with Longoria on a daily basis in Triple-A last year and searches for words to describe his pupil almost physically, gesturing in the air.
"It's that thing," Gaetti said. "He's in the game. He's in the fire."
That willingness and ability to lock in on what needs to be done each day might be what sets Longoria apart. Of course, he wouldn't be where he is without his world-class wrist snap at the plate or smooth hands in the field, but most in a big-league clubhouse have high-level tools. For Longoria, it's a matter of how to put them to the best use.
"In my opinion -- and I've heard it from other guys -- it's the way you go about your business, the way you prepare for the games," he said. "That's kind of what separates guys at this level. There's a lot of guys in this room that are at the same talent level, physically. I just try to have that extra drive and that extra desire to want to do something better. I think that's what takes guys to that next level."
Self-assured and confident, the 22-year-old nonetheless breaks off in mid-thought more than once to emphasize that he doesn't think he's better than anyone else in the Rays' clubhouse. But Longoria is proud of what he has done to position himself the way he has.
"Things didn't come too easy in the start," he said. "I kind of had to work to where I got, and I think that proves a little bit to everybody that things weren't really just handed to me coming up."
Made Up For Lost Time
Longoria began playing baseball when he was 4 or 5 years old, goofing around like every other kid in a church league sponsored by the St. Dominic Savio parish in the Los Angeles suburb of Bellflower.
Evan is the oldest of Michael and Ellie Longoria's four children (three of them boys), and his dad was his coach growing up.
"Baseball's been the only thing I ever really enjoyed playing," he said. "I played other sports and I liked other sports, but the only thing that really stuck was baseball."
Longoria grew into an all-league player at St. John Bosco High School, which sits next door to St. Dominic Savio, but he didn't open enough eyes to get drafted as a senior in 2003.
"He was a bit of a late bloomer, baseball-wise," said Kris Jondoe, Longoria's coach at St. John Bosco. "He really sprouted up from his junior year of high school into his senior year. He was always athletic and had a good arm, but all of a sudden he was driving the ball, hitting with a lot of power. He had a really smooth swing and it was effortless."
His development came too late to convince Division I recruiters he was worth a scholarship. Jondoe tried to drum up interest, getting Southern Cal and Loyola-Marymount to take a look, but nobody pulled the trigger.
"They all missed the boat," Jondoe said.
Longoria ended up at Rio Hondo Junior College, near his home, and led his league in runs and RBIs while playing a decent shortstop. That helped draw attention from some of the colleges that had passed on him the year before, including Long Beach State.
"His hands were just exceptional, so that's one thing that really stood out for us," Long Beach coach Mike Weathers said. "And then I thought his arm strength as a shortstop was fine. I thought he could play short for us, but I already had one."
That would be Troy Tulowitzki, currently of the Colorado Rockies, who quickly became a friend and mentor to Longoria when the younger player settled in beside him at third base for the 2005 season.
It wasn't until the summer after his first year at Long Beach that Longoria started to believe he might be able to make a living playing baseball.
He was invited to participate in the prestigious Cape Cod League, considered a critical proving ground for college hitters because wood bats are used instead of aluminum. Longoria had never used a wood bat in competition but ended up leading the summer league in home runs and RBIs and was named its Most Valuable Player.
That performance made believers of the scouts who had been skeptical of the skinny kid from St. John Bosco a few years earlier, and a standout junior year at Long Beach sealed his spot among the upper echelon of pro prospects.
"Him not being pampered and being labeled a superstar from day one, he always had to work and prove himself," Jondoe said. "Instead of taking that as a negative ... Evan took the approach, 'Well, I'll show them.' He wasn't bitter, but he said, 'I think I can play and I'll show them through my work ethic,' and that kind of stuff, and I think he did."
Showing Flashes In Exhibitions
Halfway through spring training, Longoria has done nothing to diminish the reputation that preceded him.
Doing all he can to convince the Rays he is ready to take over as their third baseman, Longoria has shown those flashes everyone wants to see: that line drive he ripped off the wall in left-center for a double in the Rays' Grapefruit League opener; or his running, barehanded stab-and-throw on a bunt attempt against the Phillies in Clearwater.
Reid Brignac, who has played alongside Longoria most of the last two seasons, said Rays fans should get used to moments like that.
"Every time he comes to the field and he's on the field, you watch," Brignac said.
"He's a game-changing player."
