Long Beach State University Athletics
Longoria Learned About Perserverance Early
7/15/2008 12:00:00 AM | General
July 15, 2008
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Six months before baseball fans voted him into the final American League roster spot for Tuesday's All-Star Game, Evan Longoria threw on his Tampa Bay Rays ballcap, grabbed a bag of Wiffle balls and visited his aunt's kindergarten class at St. Margaret Mary School in Lomita.
He showed 5-year-old boys and girls how to swing a bat. He knelt down in the schoolyard and lobbed hundreds of plastic spheres into their tiny strike zones until each child hit what felt like a home run.
"Try again," he encouraged them after whiffs that left their bodies as twisted as pretzels.
"Have you ever struck out?" a kid asked.
"Too many times to count," Longoria said. "But I kept swinging."
The day's lesson was perseverance, something the would-be All Star has needed to practice since four baseball seasons at St. John Bosco High and first team all-league honors left him without a Division I scholarship offer.
The kids probably couldn't wrap their minds around all the perseverance Longoria showed by taking the junior-college route through Rio Hondo Community College for his freshman season.
Or by transferring to Long Beach State, where he had a scholarship but needed to move from shortstop to third because Troy Tulowitzki was anchoring the middle infield.
Or by stepping into the batter's box while opposing fans teased him for having a name similar to that of a "Desperate Housewives" actress.
The youngsters probably didn't realize that some players might have shelved their bats, gloves and big-league dreams when Longoria kept playing and kept traveling to another team, another town and another ballpark for an opportunity.
Julie Kristoff-Ruiz, their teacher and Longoria's aunt, could have covered every student's head with a hat from each one of the far-flung stops Longoria made on his way to becoming a major leaguer.
"I brought in the collection: Bosco, Rio Hondo, Long Beach State, the Chatham A's (of the Cape Cod League), the (single-A) Hudson Valley Renegades and Visalia Oaks, the (double-A) Montgomery Biscuits, the (triple-A) Durham Bulls and the Rays," she said. "When they saw all the hats, I think they understood how hard Evan had to keep working."
Back on the day in February when he visited the class, Longoria, 22, wasn't sure how long he would keep playing a minor role and was stumped when one schoolgirl asked, "What team do you play for?"
"I don't know yet," said the Rays' 2006 first-round draft selection, third overall, who gave every student a Wiffle ball he signed with his name and No. 3. "I hope I can play for the Tampa Bay Rays some day."
But Longoria didn't make the Rays' opening day roster. He was optioned back to Durham. Then April 11, 14 games into the season, he was promoted to Tampa.
"We couldn't believe it," remembered Kristoff-Ruiz. "His parents were so excited, they booked a flight to Tampa that night. He was finally going to be a major-league baseball player, and all I kept thinking was that this was the only thing he said he wanted to be since he was 4 years old and playing on the Downey Juniors."
The proud aunt who used to be Longoria's babysitter recalled how Evan, not even 3 years old, pedaled his bike -- without training wheels -- around the Downey gas station owned by his grandfather, a former rec-league baseball umpire.
His grandmother used to toss 4-year-old Longoria masking-tape baseballs for batting practice in their front yard. "You know, it's all that pitching of the tape baseballs that made the difference," Dorothy Kristoff, his maternal grandmother known as "Bubby" in family circles, still reminds him.
His mother, Ellie, went to every game he played growing up and used to get angry when his high school coaches didn't appear to showcase him in front of scouts.
"Mama, it will be fine," he'd tell his mother. "I'll keep playing hard and somebody will notice."
Everyone has.
Eighty-four games into his major-league career, Longoria is the starting third baseman and rookie sensation for the surprising Rays, who had the best record in baseball before a seven-game skid put them half a game behind Boston in the AL East.
Batting .275, Longoria leads the Rays in home runs (16), RBIs (53) and OPS (.861), or on-base plus slugging percentage. Kristoff-Ruiz sent a memo home with her students last month saying something like, "You might want to hold on to that Wiffle ball. My nephew, Evan, is doing pretty well on the Rays."
Fans selected Longoria ahead of New York's Jason Giambi, Chicago's Jermaine Dye, Kansas City's Jose Guillen and Baltimore's Brian Roberts in a 53-hour Internet vote for the final AL roster spot.
Longoria's parents, Mike and Ellie; his sister, Alex, 21; and brothers, Adam, 19, and Luke, 13, took an early flight Monday bound for New York to see him in the Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium.
"He's so excited," said Kristoff-Ruiz, knowing that her nephew didn't need to go back to kindergarten to love baseball as much as he did as a child.
